“Undoubtedly every actress yearns for a tour de force and Hedy Lamarr, who plays the title role in The Strange Woman, can consider that yearning wholly fulfilled. For the somber drama of a suave sinner in Bangor, Maine, of a century ago affords Miss Lamarr her meatiest assignment in years, with lots of choice dialogue and an opportunity to wear a wardrobe that won’t go unnoticed by the ladies. But as a study of singular female character set off by a coterie of ruined males, this adaptation of Ben Ames Williams’ best-selling novel of a few years back has a way of telegraphing its punches. A revealing dissection of a predatory femme fatale it nevertheless lacks motivation for some of its supporting players, pace and suspence to make it a completely moving drama.
As the grasping, wily wanton, Hedy Lamarr is beautiful, even in peplum and bustle. She is a desirable, sagaciously vicious and passionate woman, who very conceivably might captivate men easily. But her rather sudden discovery of her baseness through the evangelist’s warning that ‘the lips of the strange woman drip honey, but her end is as bitter as wormwood’, is a mite too glib and abrupt. Gene Lockhart is properly sanctimonious, suspicious and penurious as her first spouse. Louis Hayward’s brief role, as his ill-fated son, is not a full portrait, but a credible one, while George Sanders, as the overseer, and for once, a good man, makes the most out of the charcter he portrays. Like Mr. Williams’ prose, The Strange Woman is expertly handled, but somehow the excitements of her life are rarely projected from the screen”. (A.W., New York Times, February 24, 1947)