The Mark of Cain

Richard falls in love with Sarah in France and courts her, and then his brother John comes across and steals her away from him. John marries her, and the marriage is not a success, in spite of their one daughter Sally, because for John business is all, and he persists in working himself to death, while he neglects his wife and treats her with cruelty. Richard comes to rescue her, tries to persuade her to a divorce, but that is not legally so easy in Edwardian England. Sarah has another admirer, young Jeremy Thorn, who gets involved in her case, and he is the one who ultimately saves her from both the brothers, who both perish in their innate lifelong conflict mainly because of Richard's envy and inferiority complex. It's difficult to find a case for either of them, because they both go to recklessness in their passions and get lost in them. However, Eric Portman was a great actor in the 40s, and all his films are extremely interesting and fascinating for his very special performances, and here he excels most of them. In this film you must feel more sympathy and understanding for him than for John, and although it's impossible to acquit either of them for their recklessness, bolting blindly in their passions, for work and for love of Sarah, Eric Portman as Richard is the one you will remember, and the film mercifully refrains from telling the end of the story, although how it will all turn out is all too obvious, but you are grateful for not having to witness it.