Deception

Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains — watch Deception (1946) online on iFILM, a Warner Bros. melodrama directed by Irving Rapper. Pianist Christine is reunited with Karel, the cellist she loves, after years apart during the war. They marry almost immediately. And Christine has a problem she has not told him about.

The problem is Alexander Hollenius: composer, conductor, and the man who paid for her apartment, her wardrobe, and her career while Karel was away. Rains plays him with quiet, proprietary menace — a man who views Christine's talent as something he is owed in return. Karel has no idea. Each scene between Davis and Rains runs at a slightly colder temperature than the rest of the film, and that contrast is where Deception earns its title.

Based on a French stage play and dismissed as overheated at release, the film has since reversed its reputation. The controlled threat Rains brings to every exchange makes this one of the more unsettling portraits of obsession in 1940s Hollywood. Stream Deception (1946) on iFILM.