Ivy deals with the activities of a poisoner in a series of period settings. Ivy Lexton (Joan Fontaine) is an expressionless beauty driven by greed to commit murder; she glides, perfectly groomed, through men's lives, luring and destroying at every stage. The Edwardian period is re-created with filigree precision: a tour-de-force of Russell Metty's photographic art. The gradual closing in on this evil butterfly is brilliantly charted by the writer Charles Bennett. A chef-d'oeuvre in which the direction, design, writing and playing, have created an intensely civilised pleasure.