My Name Is Julia Ross (1945)

My Name Is Julia Ross is a 1945 American gothic film noir directed by Joseph H. Lewis, and starring Nina Foch, Dame May Whitty, and George Macready. Its plot follows a young woman in England who is hired as a live-in secretary for an ailing widow, where she awakens one day and is gaslit by those around her, claiming she is someone else. The screenplay is based on the 1941 novel The Woman in Red by Anthony Gilbert. The film received a loose remake called Dead of Winter (1987), starring Mary Steenburgen.

Director – Joseph H. Lewis

Writers – Muriel Roy Bolton (screen play by), Anthony Gilbert (from the book “The Woman in Red” by)

Cast –
Nina Foch as Julia Ross
Dame May Whitty as Mrs. Hughes
George Macready as Ralph Hughes
Roland Varno as Dennis Bruce
Anita Sharp-Bolster as Sparkes
Doris Lloyd as Mrs. Mackie
Joy Harington as Bertha
Queenie Leonard as Alice
Olaf Hytten as The Reverend Lewis
Leonard Mudie as Peters
Harry Hays Morgan Jr. as Robinson
Ottola Nesmith as Mrs. Robinson
Reginald Sheffield as McQuarrie
Evan Thomas as Dr. Keller
Leyland Hodgson as Policeman
Milton Owen as Policeman
Charles McNaughton as Gatekeeper
Marilyn Johnson as Nurse

Watch “My Name Is Julia Ross” (1945)

Plot

In London, Julia Ross goes to a new employment agency, desperate for work. When Mrs. Sparkes learns that she has no near relations, she recommends Julia for a job as a live-in personal secretary to a wealthy widow, Mrs. Hughes. Mrs. Hughes approves and insists that she move that very night into her house. Two days later, Julia awakes as a prisoner at an isolated seaside estate in Cornwall.

All her possessions have disappeared and the young woman is told she is really Marion, the wife of Ralph Hughes, Mrs. Hughes’s son. The staff have been told that she has suffered a nervous breakdown; as a result, they ignore her seemingly wild claims, and her attempts to escape are all foiled.

Julia writes a letter to Dennis Bruce, her only close friend and admirer, and cleverly leaves it where it can be found. The Hugheses substitute a blank sheet of paper and allow her to post it, unaware that Julia has anticipated them and written a second letter. That night, Julia discovers a secret passage to her room and overhears Ralph admit to his mother that he murdered his wife in a fit of rage and disposed of her body in the sea. Even so, when a “doctor” comes in response to a fake poisoning attempt, she blurts out her plan to him, only to discover that he (along with Mrs. Sparkes) is in on the scheme. He is dispatched to London to intercept the letter. When the real doctor shows up, Julia thinks he’s also a fake and refuses to see him. The doctor recommends she be taken to a hospital immediately, but Mrs. Hughes persuades him to come back in the morning.

Julia’s captors have to make it appear that she has committed suicide before the doctor can take her away.

Julia throws her gown out the window, making it look like she threw herself to her death, then hides in the secret passage. When the doctor drives up, Mrs. Hughes delays him so that her son can get to the body first. Ralph picks up a rock to ensure that Julia is really dead, but is stopped by Dennis and a policeman, who had been alerted by the letter. (The fake doctor had been apprehended in London when he tried to intercept the letter.) When Ralph tries to flee, he is shot down. Later, Julia and Dennis drive away and talk about getting married.