"A feverishly - almost campily - operatic story of passion turning to fury. Blue-blooded Charlton Heston loves Ruby (Jennifer Jones), but she's a poor North Carolina swamp girl, so he marries a woman from a proper background. Ruby lands the richest man in town, is widowed, and proceeds to avenge herself on everyone who has ever done her dirt. Heston is her prime target; he has been involved in a large-scale endeavor to reclaim marshland. She terminates the project with the order 'Stop the pumps.' That may sound like a put-on, but the movie doesn't mean to be funny. King Vidor directed, in the seething, extravagant style he employed in parts of Duel In The Sun and in such outre items as Beyond The Forest and The Fountainhead."