| Director | Ranald MacDougall |
|---|
Eva Phillips dominates her Georgia mansion and her facially scarred husband Avery, nicknamed "Beauty", an alcoholic mill owner who hates her. A cousin, Jennifer Stewart, stays with the family and watches in horror as Eva maneuvers to prevent the marriage of Avery's sister Carol to Avery's business manager Judson Prentiss, Eva's former lover. Jennifer learns that Eva stole Avery from house guest Sue McKinnon, who has been mentally disturbed ever since.
Jennifer briefly dates Sue's suave brother Ty. As tension builds among the residents of the mansion, Avery shoots Eva's terminally ill dog off-screen, telling people to lie to Eva and say that the dog had died naturally. Jennifer says that she does not like to lie, and Avery says that Eva favors lies over truth.
Carol warns Jennifer about Eva, whom she compares to a queen bee that kills her competitors. Jennifer refuses to believe Carol and becomes Eva's assistant, as well as a caretaker for Tessa and Ted, the young Phillips children. Ted experiences intense nightmares about a fatal car crash involving his parents.
Eva tries to seduce Jud in a dark room, but he refuses her advances. Jennifer observes from the staircase and is shocked. Eva warns Jud that he will be sorry for refusing her. When Carol and Jud's engagement is announced, Eva strongly hints at her past affair with Jud, and Carol hangs herself in the horse stable.
Avery catches nanny Miss Breen acting abusively toward the children and fires her. Jennifer and Avery share a furtive kiss when he tells her that he is aware of Eva and Jud's past. Eva senses the developing relationship and her malevolence deepens. She insists that Miss Breen remain and cautions Avery to not interact with Jennifer any further. When he refuses, she threatens a scandalous divorce in the press.
Jud, still guilty over Carol's death, leaves the house for several weeks, but comes back one day for work. He learns from Jennifer that it was really Eva who had informed Carol about his earlier relationship with Eva, not Avery as he had assumed. Avery, after glancing over his gun cabinet, completely changes his treatment of Eva, acting as if he is deeply in love with her, even giving her an expensive bracelet. She changes her attitude and says that she will no longer be manipulative because her husband finally loves her. However, Jud sees through the charade and confronts Avery, correctly surmising that Avery's true motive for his new attitude toward Eva is a ploy to engender her trust in him so that he can kill her.
Jud preempts Avery's plan on the night when Avery intends to commit murder-suicide and drives Eva to the fancy-dress party to which Avery would have driven her. While driving on a rain-slick road, Jud explains to Eva what Avery's plan had been, though Eva comes to believe that it is actually Jud who wants her dead, so she frantically attacks him, which results in a crash over a cliff, killing them both. Before learning of his mother's death, Ted has another dream about a fatal car crash. Now, Jennifer and Avery are free to love each other.