When opportunistic publisher "Lewis Venable" (Robert Cummings) sets out to track down some long-lost love letters from recently re-discovered poet "Jeffrey Ashton", he ends up in a Dickensian-style mansion house where the writer's former mistress, the very elderly "Juliana" (an almost unrecognisable Agnes Moorhead) dressed in black, sits in her chair most of the time with frustrated daughter "Tina" (Susan Hayward) tightly wound up living the life of a caged bird. Rather than come clean about his motives, "Venable" poses as a novelist to ingratiate himself with the women - but soon, is embroiled in a complex intrigue involving the two ladies and the letters. Hayward is super - she exudes an eeriness and almost schizophrenic charisma as the young woman who seems caught in a time loop unsure as to whether she is "Tina" or her own mother. The haunting music from Daniele Amfitheatrof (and a tiny bit of Caruso too) helps build the tension carefully and effectively as the significance of the letters becomes more evident and poignant to the predicament of the women - and increasingly, their guest. Cummings is OK, he has an innate blandness about him to watch, but he has a good script to work with and good to foil to act with, and the pot stays boiling til very near the end.