Mine Own Executioner

Two cases from the files of psycho-therapist Meredith. The first concerns a violently schizophrenic ex-PoW, the other relates to the shrink himself, and his compulsion to mistreat his wife. One case ends in provisional success, the other in utter disaster. Unlike most 1940s movies dealing with psychiatry, this refuses to be awe-struck by its subject or to put it to the service of melodrama. Kimmins, a middling, unexciting sort of director, at least had common sense, a virtue which this film exemplifies. He does allow himself one, quite successful, stylistic flourish, a subjectively shot flashback to the capture and torture of the PoW. Nigel Balchin scripted from his own novel.