My Name is Julia Ross

This is the movie that was later remade (and jazzed up a bit) as Dead of Winter, with Mary Steenburgen, Roddy McDowell, and Jan Rubeš. This time it is Dame May Whitty and George Macready who kidnap a young woman, Nina Foch, but this time they try to fuck with her mind while she’s drugged. She is told she is George’s wife and while she never buys into the story, it’s not important that she does, just that the staff and neighbors understand she has had a nervous breakdown and believes she is the Ross person. She’s plucky and almost makes her escape when she realizes she is intended to take the place of the real wife, who has already succumbed to George’s uncontrollable rages. It’s all good Hitchcockian fun, and in most ways better than the remake.