Woman in a Dressing Gown **** (1957, Yvonne Mitchell, Anthony Quayle, Sylvia Syms, Andrew Ray) – Classic Movie Review 11,925

The 1957 British drama film Woman in a Dressing Gown stars Yvonne Mitchell, Anthony Quayle, Sylvia Syms and Andrew Ray. Director J Lee Thompson turns Ted Willis’s TV play into a well-crafted, thoughtful and touching film.

Producer-director J Lee Thompson’s 1957 British drama film Woman in a Dressing Gown stars Yvonne Mitchell, Anthony Quayle, Sylvia Syms and Andrew Ray. This old-style emotional number is faded, but not unattractively so.

Pretty young office worker Georgie (Syms) seduces ageing Jim Preston (Quayle) away from his slovenly middle-aged wife of 20 years, Amy (Mitchell), who slops around in her dressing gown all day. Jim (Quayle) enjoys having the extramarital affair and considers leaving Amy, who (Mitchell) resolves to fight back when Jim demands a divorce to marry Georgie (Syms). Andrew Ray plays the couple’s teenage son Brian Preston.

Director Thompson turns Ted Willis’s famed Fifties TV play into a well-crafted film that is surprisingly thoughtful and touching. This powerfully acted and observantly scripted Fifties British domestic drama still convinces and moves. Mitchell won the Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival for her rousing turn.

Ted Willis writes the screenplay from his 1956 ITV Television Playhouse play. He later adapted the script into a hit stage play, so he got three nice bites of the cherry.

Jean-Luc Godard wrote: ‘From beginning to end, the film is an incredible debauch of camera movements as complex as they are silly and meaningless.’ Nevertheless, the film is a strong early example of British social realism, and a notable prototype kitchen sink drama, pointing the way to the Sixties British New Wave.

The cast are Yvonne Mitchell as Amy Preston, Anthony Quayle as Jim Preston, Sylvia Syms as Georgie Harlow, Andrew Ray as Brian Preston, Carole Lesley as Hilda, Michael Ripper as Pawnbroker, Nora Gordon as Mrs Williams, Marianne Stone as Hairdresser, Olga Lindo as Manageress, Harry Locke as Wine merchant, Max Butterfield as Harold, Roberta Woolley as Christine, Melvyn Hayes as Newsboy, Cordelia Mitchell as Hilda’s baby.

The film won four awards at the seventh Berlin International Film Festival including the first FIPRESCI Prize and a special mention for Best Foreign Film. Mitchell won the Silver Bear for Best Actress. The film also won the 1958 Golden Globe Award for Best English Language Foreign Film.

Godard did not like that either: ‘One really has to rack one’s brains to find anything to say good about a British film. And there isn’t even an exception to prove the rule. Especially not Woman in a Dressing Gown anyhow, in spite of its acting prize at the recent Berlin Festival. That just goes to show that the Germans have no idea either.’

In the UK, where they have no idea, it had good reviews and was one of the most popular 1957 films at the box office, though, typically, J Lee Thompson said the film lost money: the box office was £450,000 (UK) and £1 million (total), which seem healthy enough.

The cinematographer is Gilbert Taylor and the producers are J Lee Thompson and Frank Godwin.

Ted Willis, J Lee Thompson and Sylvia Syms returned for No Trees in the Street (1959).

The much loved English actress Sylvia Syms OBE (6 January 1934 – 27 January 2023) is best known for the films Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957), Ice Cold in Alex (1958), The Moonraker (1958), Expresso Bongo (1959), No Trees in the Street (1959), Victim (1961), The Punch and Judy Man (1963), The Tamarind Seed (1974), and The Queen (2006), in which she played The Queen Mother.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 11,925

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com