Sudden Fear

Myra Hudson, a successful Broadway playwright, rejects Lester Blaine as the lead in her new play, sowing early professional tension between them. This decision hints at a rocky dynamic that foreshadows their later marriage.

On a train bound for San Francisco, Myra is swept off her feet by Lester Blaine. After a brief courtship, they marry, starting a rapid and stormy union.

Former lover Irene Neves reappears and reveals that she and Lester have rekindled their romance. Together they plot to take Myra's money, setting the emotional and financial trap that drives the rest of the film.

Myra's lawyer proposes a will with a bequest to Lester that would terminate if he remarries. After thinking it over, Myra chooses to leave all her estate to Lester instead, enraging Irene and setting up the conflict.

To ensure the wording, Myra dictates her new will into a dictating machine and rewinds to listen to it. When she plays it back, she overhears a conversation recorded the previous night between Lester and Irene plotting to kill her.

In despair, Myra drops the dictation disk and it shatters, destroying the recording. Realizing the danger of their plot, she resolves to turn the tables.

Her mood shifts from fear to defiance as she leverages her playwright talents to craft a cunning plan. She decides to obtain the weapon and stage a scheme to protect herself, or possibly ruin her enemies.

From the conversation, Myra learns Lester has a key to Irene's apartment and that Irene has a gun. She makes a copy of the key and obtains the gun from Irene's apartment.

Myra writes and surreptitiously delivers letters purporting to be from the other, arranging for Irene to leave her apartment late at night and for Lester to go to Irene's apartment. The ruse is designed to set up a late‑night encounter.

In her mind's eye she envisions the plan: Lester enters Irene's apartment, Myra shoots him with Irene's gun, and Irene is blamed. The sequence is staged as a grim, intricate trap.

Irene leaves for the garage and Myra hides in Irene's closet wearing her clothes to avoid detection. A phone rings, triggering panic, and a long, horror‑stricken moment as she contemplates her actions.

Lester pursues Myra, driving through the city as she tries to escape. He eventually closes in, and the pursuit spills into the streets as night deepens.

Lester mistakes Irene for Myra and accelerates toward her. Irene reveals herself, cries Lester's name, and the car crashes, killing both Irene and Lester.

Police arrive as Myra regains her composure, walks away without visible grief, and discards her headscarf, a final sign of her transformed resolve.