An Unsuitable Job for a Woman *** (1982, Billie Whitelaw, Paul Freeman, Pippa Guard) – Classic Movie Review 10,444

Director Christopher Petit’s 1982 crime mystery thriller An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is an intriguing and largely successful if too tricksy film version of P D James’s twisting 1972 novel featuring her female detective Cordelia Gray (Pippa Guard), who takes over as sole proprietor of the Pryde Detective Agency when her employer kills himself.

Billie Whitelaw plays Elizabeth Leaming, who gets Cordelia Gray to investigate another (apparent) suicide – that of Mark Calendar (Alex Guard), the son of the rich businessman James Calendar (Paul Freeman), found hanged in mysterious circumstances. So Cordelia Gray masquerades as a gardener, interviews Mark’s friend Andrew Lunn (Dominic Guard), and his girlfriend Isobel (Dawn Archibald) and soon finds herself in danger, thrown down an abandoned well.

This compulsive and chilling detective thriller is suitably dark and occasionally scary, and has compelling performances to make it work. It puts its own individual spin on the novel in a loose, art cinema-style adaptation infused with film noir sensibilities.

Also in the cast are Elizabeth Spriggs as Miss Markland, David Horovitch as Sergeant Maskell, Bernadette Shortt as Temp, James Gilbey as Boy, Kelda Holmes as Girl, and Margaret Wade as Secretary.

It is remade as a TV series in 1997 with Helen Baxendale as Cordelia Gray.

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is directed by Christopher Petit, runs 94 minutes, is made by Boyd’s Company, Carolina Bank, Goldcrest Films International and National Film Finance Corporation, is released by Palace Video (1982) (UK), is written by Elizabeth McKay, Brian Scobie and Christopher Petit, based on the the novel by P D James, shot in Gevacolor by Martin Schäfer, produced by Michael Relph and Peter McKay, scored by Chaz Jankel and designed by Anton Furst.

Edinburgh-born Pippa Guard is the cousin of Dominic Guard. In 1998, she graduated with a first-class degree in English and drama from the University of Greenwich in London. By December 2009 she was lecturer in Communication and Creative Arts at the University of Greenwich. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is her only film role.

The budget was £750,000, of which Goldcrest Films provided £316,000 after a reluctant Jake Eberts was persuaded by David Puttnam’s enthusiasm for the director. Sadly, the film made a loss of £120,000 for Goldcrest.

It was entered into the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival but lost to Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Golden Bear award-winner Veronika Voss.

Petit says he treated the novel ‘as a kind of ghost story, a black-fairy tale’, saying his film has more to do with the dark secrets of family than detective fiction.

It is film critic Petit’s second directorial feature, following Radio On (1979).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,444

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