Liberty Theatre tonight at 8.45 p.m.

It was remarkable to learn that this movie, where the most immediate impression is one of style and polished elegance, was shot in little more than two weeks. It was shot almost entirely in the house where Marlene Dietrich lived in during her years in New York, and the actress' spirit, sense of mystery along with her own special brand of panache was always evident in this film.

The script, written by the Czechoslovakian director Alexander Tana, takes the audience on a psychological roller coaster ride, forcing its watchers to second guess the story, and their own reaction to it, at every turn.

Ingrid is the name of a murder victim, killed by her lover. A police officer was also murdered, along with a blind neighbour in that same house, by the same man. The house is put on the market shortly afterwards, and a psychiatrist snaps it up.

Some two decades after the murders, a beautiful Long Island matron walks into the elegant Manhattan town house, and tells the psychiatrist to kill her husband, or she will expose him as the killer.

This film is fascinating because it has a clear lesson, and it is this: we Time runs out for Ingrid believe, because we crave the happy ending -- even though the truth may have been staring us in the face all along.

Tana develops the character of the psychiatrist into one who is sympathetic not only to Jill, the dissatisfied Long Island wife, but to the audience. He forces his audiences to examine their own powers of deduction, and how those powers are affected by the appeal of the personalities in his film.

This is the premise of `Ingrid', and it is the point the director wanted to make. The script works well for the most part, and it was nicely crafted.

However, Tana gets caught in his own trap, and carries the ruse too far.

Ultimately, time runs out and it ends in a slapdash fashion, and using the most tenuous of evidence.

There is a lot of sex, and references to sex, of the blue variety in `Ingrid', and it is gratuitous to boot. It did not add to the plot, and demeaned the characters and interrupted the flow of the film, which otherwise keeps the audience on the edge of their seats from beginning to end.

The remarkable strength of this film is its look. The house in which it was filmed was beautiful, and the principal actors all had "star'' quality, that indefinable "certain something''. The costumes are wonderful and the sets provide an air of comfortable wealth, allowing the audience to sink into a zone of visual comfort, which make it all the easier for Tana to lull us into the sense of false security, helping to achieve the result he is aiming for.

The score, too, which was composed specifically for Ingrid, adds enormously to the pervading sense of mystery and suspense.

Overall, `Ingrid' is a fascinating and gripping film, and extremely entertaining. Anyone -- except children and the easily shocked -- should go and see it.

REBECCA ZUILL MOVIE MPC REVIEW REV