The Unholy Wife ** (1957, Diana Dors, Rod Steiger, Tom Tryon, Beulah Bondi, Marie Windsor, Arthur Franz) – Classic Movie Review 8484

‘HALF-ANGEL……HALF-DEVIL, she made him HALF-A-MAN! ‘

After I Married a Woman, in August 1956 Diana Dors signed a contract with RKO Pictures to make three more movies, the first of which was the 1957 Technicolor film noir crime film The Unholy Wife (1957). But, sadly, Britain’s number one Fifties blonde bombshell sexpot Diana Dors did not have a lot of luck in America and here’s one of the reasons why.

Dors slinks her way through her part as good-time girl Phyllis Hochen, who begins an affair with a rodeo rider San Sanford (Tom Tryon) and tries ‘accidentally’ to kill her husband Paul (Rod Steiger), mistakenly shooting someone else, her husband’s best friend. In best noir style, femme fatale Phyllis tells her sordid story in flashback from her prison cell.

Diana Dors in The Unholy Wife.

Steiger seems unhappy in a sympathetic role and his Method acting style doesn’t help this muddled film noir-style melodrama of cheating wife and jealous husband in a loveless marriage in California’s Napa Valley.

There are good credits for this film, with John Farrow as director and producer, Lucien Ballard as cinematographer, Jonathan Latimer as writer and Daniele Amfitheatrof as composer, and some first-rate performers involved (Beulah Bondi, Marie Windsor, Arthur Franz, Luis Van Rooten, Joe De Santiis, James Burke, Steve Pendleton), so it counts as a real disappointment.

The Unholy Wife is based on a TV play The Prowler by William Durkee, presented on the show Climax! and starring Claire Trevor, Pat O’Brien and Cameron Mitchell.

Dors had signed a long-term contract with RKO, but she came home to the UK. Dors’s RKO films flopped and RKO elected not to make the other two films in her contract. RKO terminated its contract with Dors in December 1958, alleging she ‘has become an object of disgrace, obloquy, ill will and ridicule.’ Dors sued the studio for defamation of character for $1,250,000 in damages and settled for $200,000. After this the studio folded.

Also in the cast are as Beulah Bondi as Emma Hochen, Marie Windsor as Gwen, Arthur Franz as Father Stephen Hochen, Luis Van Rooten as Ezra Benton, Joe De Santis as Gino Verdugo, Argentina Brunetti as Theresa, Steve Pendleton as Deputy Bob Watkins, Douglas Spencer as Judge, Gary Hunley as Michael, James Burke as Sheriff Tom Watling and Tol Avery as District Attorney Carl Kramer.

It was at made at RKO Radio Pictures, but released by Universal Pictures as RKO was in the process of ending making films.

Dors reportedly had an affair with Rod Steiger during filming.

Next in England Dors made The Long Haul (1957) with Victor Mature and stayed in crime for Tread Softly Stranger (1958).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8484

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