The Cobweb

One of the best of Minnelli's 50s dramas, set in an up-market psychiatric clinic with Widmark as the head man, Grahame as the unusually sexual wife and mother, Bacall as the unusually maternal 'other woman'. It is this inversion which disrupts the paternal law and order of the clinic and the home: a worried Widmark appears to be losing his place in both, and only when the two women are back in conventional place can sanity be restored. Don't be put off by the crude surface Freudianism: it's fascinating, with fine performances.