STRANGE CONQUEST

Peter Cookson

STRANGE CONQUEST (1946). Director: John Rawlins.

Dr. Mary Palmer (Jane Wyatt) is quite put out when told that she can't join  Dr. Harris (Lowell Gilmore) at a research post in Sumatra because she's a woman. She's even more annoyed when she learns that her replacement is Dr. Bill Sommers (Peter Cookson of Fear), whose family is backing the foundation. When Bill arrives in Sumatra he is not warmly welcomed by Dr. Harris or his associate Bert (Milburn Stone of Swing It Professor), because they were expecting a more experienced doctor. Harris and Sommers both try to concoct a vaccine (or "serum") for something called "Black Grass Fever," which has already killed the man Sommers is replacing. Half an hour later in the running time Mary does get to meet Dr. Harris, although by this time he's impersonating Dr. Sommers. And then  Sommer's wife (Julie Bishop of Lady Gangster) shows up ...

Peter Cookson with Lowell Gilmore

I have withheld some of the plot details because the movie is unpredictable unless you've seen the previous version, which is called The Crime of Dr. Hallet. I think this film is meant to be ennobling and touching but it simply isn't convincing enough to do so. For that the actors cannot be faulted because everyone is perfectly on target, especially Cookson in one of his best portrayals. Cookson played Morris Townsend on Broadway in "The Heiress," but when the film was made the better-known Montgomery Clift got the part. Cookson would also have been marvelous and might have had an entirely different career had he been in the film version. Instead he mostly did cheap pictures for Monogram, and on occasion, bigger studios like Universal, which released Strange Conquest. 

Gilmore with Jane Wyatt

Lowell Gilmore was also an attractive and talented leading man type, but after a few movies, including The Picture of Dorian Gray, most of his credits were for television series. Jane Wyatt became more famous for Father Knows Best than anything else, but she did quite a few films earlier in her career. The synopsis on IMDB.com makes this sound like a film about a romantic triangle, but that is not the case. Wyatt is the only actor in this who is billed above the title. 

Verdict: Half-baked melodrama has a very adept cast. **1/2.