Woman In A Dressing Gown [DVD] [1957]

Product Information

Husband Jim (Anthony Quayle) swerves into the arms of pretty young colleague Georgie (Sylvia Syms) but his request for a divorce wrenches Amy into a dark reflection of what her life has become, in what remains as moving a portrayal of repressed desires as you’ll see onscreen. How extraordinary that this ‘lost’ 1957 British melodrama is being reissued in the same week as Michelangelo Antonioni’s ‘Red Desert’. It’s nigh-on impossible to imagine more different approaches to the same subject: the suffering of a woman in a loveless, controlling marriage. Where Antonioni’s approach is knowing, artful and sidelong, J Lee Thompson’s film is altogether more direct and, for the time, more challenging. And while the Italian definitely wins points for cinematic technique and psychological rigour, it’d be hard to argue that Thompson’s isn’t the more impactful, emotionally believable work. suspect this is one of those films where one's viewpoint and reaction depends partly on the gender of the viewer and also (perhaps more so) on when the film is being viewed. Nearly 60 years on, at her replacement and a husband on the defence. It is consistently good and at some moments finely tuned with a great use of physical tics and body language and as Syms explains, in her interview on the disc, women hadn't really been portrayed like this on the screen before. he is clearly a weak character, whereas Amy is shown to have hidden depths) and although the film has a happy ending of sorts it doesn't feel like that now. Wil Amy really change? It

The film was one of the most popular at the British box office in 1957. [3] According to Kinematograph Weekly the film was "in the money" at the British box office in 1957. [4] forth, but events conspire against her (her hair is ruined when she is caught in the most sudden downpour in film history; when she goes in a shop it is reasonably sunny, when she comes out less than The film is really a character study of the three main protagonists and a very interesting one at that. I found I had mixed emotions for all of them, especially Amy, whose disorganisation seemed at times to be over exaggerated. My sympathies wavered all the time! The situation of the three main characters would today seem quite old-hat but not so in 1957 I suspect. would have been 44 at the time of the film, Syms 23, with Mitchell 42), who is assured, very presentable (always immaculate in her appearance and clothes) and what we would now call a 'trophyThe film concerns a man who is having an extramarital affair and considers divorce, and his wife's reaction to the affair. Scenes compare and contrast the man's relationship with his wife versus his relationship with his lover. These are not only very different in content, but very different in film style, shots with his lover being in extreme close-up and/or unusually framed shots. Shots of the wife are mainly in wide angle, encompassing the chaotic mess of her house. The song served as a warning to America's housewives not to let themselves go, or some young girl at the office was bound to steal their man. These sentiments are echoed in a British film that pre-dated that song by seven years - Woman in a Dressing Gown - which won a slew of prizes in the 1957 Berlin Film Festival. Finally, on the Monday night, Jimbo tells Amy that he wants a divorce (I supsect that what finally does it for him is that Amy serves up a particularly unappetisiing Williams, Melanie, 'Remembering the poor soul walking in the rain: Audience Responses to a Thwarted Makeover in Woman in a Dressing Gown' in Journal of British Cinema and Television, 10 (2013), pp.709–726.

Starring Yvonne Mitchell as the titular woman, Amy Preston, the clumsy, untidy and frazzled wife of Anthony Quayle's Jim, a perpetually harangued, over-worked middle management employee, this peek behind the curtain at the supposedly blissful domesticity of marriage in 50s Britain shatters that particular illusion. A young Sylvia Sims features as Jim's secretary and 'other woman', Georgie Harlow, younger, prettier, more organised and aspirational than his, now dowdy, wife of twenty years. With their fresh faced son, Brian (Andrew Ray), starting to make his own way in life, the Preston's marriage, and their emotional states, are put under immense strain by Jim's extra-marital affair. The screenplay was written by Ted Willis, based on his 1956 ITV Television Playhouse play of the same name. The producer was Frank Godwin. Williams, Melanie, 'Twilight women of 1950s British cinema' in: The British Cinema Book. British Film Institute, 2009. one contemporary viewer who said 'It's done for dressing gowns what Psycho did for showers' although I wonder when that comment was made as Psycho was not for another threeShe was born Maureen Rippingale in Chelmsford, Essex, but ran away from home at the age of 16, "aiming to become a star". [2] other was that characters in films could always park exactly outside the place they wanted to be, and never had to drive around trying to find a parking space like the rest of us mere mortals. Syms has complained that the only roles for older women are mother-in-law types or gaga old ladies (which she tends to get). Just as film ignored the working classes in the 50s, she believes the industry is now neglecting a huge cohort of interesting older women. She knows they are out there because she keeps meeting them. "Half the charities in this country would collapse without women like me – they man the shops, they're on charity councils. For Christ's sake, it's not the men who are doing it. They might get the posh jobs but if you want work done, you go to a woman." And she doesn't mean "quaint" do-gooders. "I don't know what the word do-gooder means. It's crap. If you're doing good, you're doing good." My obsession at the moment is watching people pretend to eat in films and TV, with 'The Big Bang Theory' currently the worst offender. Have you noticed that Sheldon, Leonard et al never call it) is clearly a filmed play, but still works on a cinematic level; in fact it was a TV play first, written by Ted Willis and inspired by the new natural realism emanating from American TV and

A decade before kitchen sink cinema became de rigeur, Woman In A Dressing Gown existed as a heartbreaking British melodrama to rival in feeling the women’s pictures of Douglas Sirk and Nicholas Ray. Berlinale 1957: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Archived from the original on 4 April 2014 . Retrieved 31 December 2009. The main characters are typical rather than exceptional; the situations are easily identifiable by the audience....I am just now becoming aware of this area, this

Director General

I confess that I had never heard of J Lee Thompson's Woman in a Dressing Gown prior to reading Melanie Williams' piece on it in the August edition of Sight & Sound. As someone with both a personal and professional interest in British cinema this is either an unforgivable oversight on my part or symptomatic of the film's current status as something of a forgotten gem. I'd like to think it's the latter, mainly to spare my own blushes, and thankfully we all now have the opportunity to either be introduced to or re-acquainted with this groundbreaking slice of social realist drama. Britain's first ever kitchen-sink movie, Woman In A Dressing Gown, is re-released in cinemas this week. Front Row finds out why the film, starring Sylvia Syms and Anthony Quayle, has been neglected for the last 50 years, despite winning several prestigious awards.