Five years after the death of his wife, Samuel Sweetland can no longer bear the burden of loneliness. After his only daughter finds a husband, the farmer also seriously considers remarrying and starting a new life: to do so he asks his faithful housekeeper Araminta for help. He takes advantage of his daughter’s wedding feast to carefully examine the possible candidates, finally choosing three of them. Ugly, old maids and widows embittered by age, all three refuse his advances. Samuel, shaken by this trial and depressed by the result, almost resigns himself to living as a hermit. One day, however, he realises that he has always had the ideal companion by his side: the governess Araminta, who secretly loved him without daring to open her heart to him. So the new couple prepare to go to the altar.
Hitchcock had a passion for the grotesque depiction of characters, and in this film he has taken pains to render it with a new and wicked sense of humour.
script: Alfred Hitchcock, Leslie Arliss, J.E. Hunter, Norman Lee
photography: Jack E. Cox
mounting: Alfred Booth
scenography: C. Wilfred Arnold
other titles: LA MOGLIE DEL FATTORE, LAQUELLE DES TROIS?
color: Bianco & Nero
production company: BRITISH INTERNATIONAL PICTURES (BIP)