AllMovie

Katharine Hepburn as a helpless Gothic heroine a la Jane Eyre or Rebecca's second Mrs. De Winter? Well, that is exactly what Undercurrent asks you to believe. Yet despite her much vaunted charisma and acting prowess Hepburn fails to make much sense of Ann Hamilton, whose constant stream-of-consciousness may be typical of the actress but whose wide-eyed trust in men is definitely not. Our Kate would hardly have let herself be manipulated by someone as transparent as Robert Taylor's Alan Garroway. Certainly not! Yet here she is, being dressed by him like some store window mannequin just so he can take credit for her transformation. Almost any other actress of her generation could have made that believable but not Ms. Hepburn, who doesn't strike a viewer as the Trilby type at all. That Undercurrent remains a gripping thriller despite this bit of miscasting is solely to the credit of director Vincente Minnelli, screenwriter Edward Chodorov and good work by newcomers Jayne Meadows and Robert Mitchum, whose matter-of-fact acting style is downright refreshing in as manipulating a melodrama as Undercurrent.