The Second Woman 1950

Jeff Cohalan, Robert Young, a successful architect, is tormented by the death of his fiancée Vivian Sheppard, Shirley Ballard, on the night before their wedding. He blames himself and withdraws into the state-of-the-art cliff-top home he designed for his bride-to-be, a residence that stands as both sanctuary and symbol of his loss.

Since that night, misfortune seems to shadow him: his horse turns up horribly injured and must be put down; his dog is poisoned and dies; a creeping sense of fate or curse settles in. Then his modernist house burns to the ground in a definite case of arson. Cohalan moves in with Ellen Foster, Betsy Drake, and her Aunt Amelia Foster, Florence Bates.

Cohalan is attracted to Ellen Foster from the moment they meet. The feeling is mutual. As she learns about Jeff’s past, she begins to suspect that he may be much more in danger than he himself realizes.

It turns out that his partner in architecture, Ben Sheppard, Morris Carnovsky, is trying to destroy him. Ben, Vivian’s father, holds Jeff responsible for her death. In fact, the driver of the car was Keith Ferris, John Sutton, a married man with whom Vivian was having an affair. Vivian’s mother, Sheppard’s wife, had run away from him.

When confronted with the truth about his daughter’s car crash, Sheppard has a psychotic event: thinking Ellen is Vivian, and angry about his wife running off, he shoots at Ellen. Jeff is hit protecting her, but both survive.

When Ferris says that their boss is nutty as a squirrel, Cohalan knocks him down and orders him to either leave town or be turned in to the authorities.

“nuttier than a squirrel”

Cohalan and Ellen then resume their romance, free from fear.