The events of the film take place in the 1890s in New Orleans. Dr. Mark Lucas (Robert Mitchum) wrongly believes Barbara Beaurevel (Ava Gardner) refused him and betrayed him after their previously planned elopement. Thus Mark returns from South America accompanied by Corinne (Janis Carter), a woman he married for her beauty but not for love, due to this still lingering grudge against Barbara. She feels disappointed on meeting Corinne, yet she's determined to win him back. Barbara, already having inherited a large sum from her grandmother of ill social repute, bribes her cousin Paul (Melvyn Douglas) into seducing Corinne, thereby breaking up the marriage. Unluckily, this cold-blooded plan ends in Corinne's accidental death and Mark finding himself under strong suspicion of murder. In the end, Barbara, realizing her insidious act at the trial, empathetically confesses everything, thereby once again becoming a woman worthy of love but also losing the local gentry's consideration.
The film was to star Ann Sheridan. Under her contract she had co star approval. RKO claimed she refused all the names offered her and thus terminated the contract, replacing her with Ava Gardner. Sheridan sued RKO for $350,000. The case went to trial and in February 1951 the jury awarded her $55,162, being the minimum amount Sheridan would have earned during filming from April to August 1949 plus $5,162 for costs. It was shown that Sheridan would have approved Mitchum as a co star.[4]
^$55,162 WON IN SUIT BY ANN SHERIDAN: Federal Jury on Coast Gives Actress Damages for Claim Against R.K.O. Studios Of Local Origin
By THOMAS F. BRADY New York Times 7 Feb 1951: 47.
^Richard Jewell & Vernon Harbin, The RKO Story. New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House, 1982. p256.
^Stanley Kubrick Interview (27th November 1966), Timecode: 16:20.
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