A Woman's Secret

With elements of All About Eve, Mildred Pierce and Trapeze in it, A Woman's Secret hardly rates as being as good as one of the three films mentioned. Maybe the title is wrong, there really is no secret about anything here.

If A Woman's Secret has earned any place at all in cinema history it's because director Nicholas Ray met and fell for Gloria Grahame on the set of this film. He became her second husband.

As for the film, retired singer now manager Maureen O'Hara has a quarrel with her protégé Gloria Grahame. Later on when Grahame is shot and critically wounded, O'Hara is brought in for questioning.

Composer and critic Melvyn Douglas in a character based on parts of Alexander Woollcott, Clifton Fadiman, and Oscar Levant just simply doesn't believe the whole thing. He lobbies vigorously on O'Hara's behalf with investigating detective Jay C. Flippen. But it's Flippen's wife, Mary Phillips, who actually finds the key. The answer is really rather obvious, but it's how the story is unraveled that's the key to the film.

Nicholas Ray went on to direct a whole lot better films and the suspense factor just isn't there for me in this one. The very professional cast go through their required paces. Others in the ensemble include Victor Jory as a criminal attorney that Douglas brings in for O'Hara who knows both of them and Bill Williams, a former GI who was to marry Grahame.

With their only being a small amount of alternate probabilities other than O'Hara trying to commit murder, there's not much of a secret to A Woman's Secret.

I'm not going to bother with the silly story behind this farce. There are several other reviews with that info. The film is full of great actors and Maureen O'Hara is stunningly beautiful. Although there's enough talent to keep you entertained up to the end, my main concern is what this film is not.

It is not a whodunit, although Jay C. Flippen as police inspector Jim Fowler at one point says it is. It is not Film Noir, although one flashback scene looks very noirish. Finally, it is certainly not an "All About Eve" as the film is actually all about nobody. In fact, it was impossible for me to figure out why most of the characters do what they do -- but, maybe you can.

Why does the police inspector sit and listen to Melvyn Douglas drone on for hours about what a great gal the Maureen O'Hara character is? Why does Maureen O'Hara insist that she is guilty? Why does Gloria Grahame have a German Luger in her purse? Why does the police inspector's wife suddenly turn into a detective? Why is Bill Williams even in the movie?

There are many more inexplicable questions that I felt were never answered, but I guess it's just A Woman's Secret.

No need to recap the plot, which I couldn't do anyway. In fact, just what the screenplay is aiming at may be the movie's biggest secret. Is it a mystery—well no, since early on the camera shows Marian (O'Hara) pulling the trigger. Is it a noir—hardly, since the atmosphere is pretty conventional. Is it a love story (a Ray specialty)—well maybe, except who loves whom is not always clear. Sure, a movie doesn't have to be pigeon-holed to be good. But the trouble here is that Secret is simply too muddled to fit anywhere, and that's despite a luminescent turn from the incomparable Gloria Grahame.

Director Ray was especially expert at getting triumphs from love story actresses—Cathy O'Donnell, Allene Roberts, Natalie Wood, et al. No wonder Grahame fell for him in real life. However, critics are right: Jory and Douglas are both a shade too old (circa, 50) for 20-something O'Hara and Grahame. Plus, pity poor Bill Williams whose one-note, unnecessary part suggests he wandered onto the wrong set. Then there's the ill- advised comedy relief from the cop's wife that erupts half-way through as if some studio higher-up suddenly intervened.

Hard to believe cult director Ray had anything to do with this muddle. Clearly, he only went through the motions, probably as a result of an unwanted studio assignment (RKO). Too bad. But, I doubt anyone could have salvaged such confused material.

Though not really a noir, this emerged a surprisingly compelling melodrama. That said, prior to its late-night Italian screening, the notoriously eccentric commentator Enrico Ghezzi stated that the film – Ray's second – was forced on him by Dore Schary; it is evident because, if there's an auteur at work here, it's screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Ray's treatment, however, is sufficiently stylish to overcome the essential impersonality with which he approached the material and, at least, through working on this film, he met future wife Gloria Grahame!).

Even if controversy still rages over Mankiewicz' exact contribution to CITIZEN KANE (1941), he gives this one a similar flashback structure; of course, comparisons to Orson Welles' magnum opus won't do Ray's more modest effort any favors, so I won't make any! Still, while not especially memorable, the film can stand on its own two feet – thanks largely to a fine cast (an unusually aggressive Maureen O'Hara, the volatile Grahame, the typically cynical Melvyn Douglas, Victor Jory as a wealthy but love-struck middle-aged man, Jay C. Flippen as an understanding police inspector). By the way, amusing though it is, the film's injection of humor is rather atypical for Ray – particularly in the figure of Flippen's wife, who likes to carry out her own sleuthing!

Maureen O'Hara should have been a star, she was a brilliant singer but her vocal chords gave out just as she was about to make it big. Rather than fade away, she used her formidable drive and intelligence to manage another singer to stardom, the lovely but dense Gloria Grahame. As the movie opens she is arrested for shooting Grahame, and the movie tells their story in flashback form.

I liked this movie a lot, it's intelligent and engrossing, and one of the few films of the period to focus on the relationship between two women. They need each other to achieve anything, but are complete opposites. O'Hara is focused, driven, smart, savvy and lives for her work; and Grahame is a dim-witted, good-natured bimbo who'd just like to enjoy life. The conflicts between them grow and grow as the movie progresses, building up until we come back to the shooting of Grahame.

The performances are good, as they should be in a character-driven film like this. O'Hara is as strong and smart as she usually is, and enjoys the chance to explore feelings not found in her usual romantic roles. It's priceless to watch her react to Grahame's blitherings. Grahame gives one of her best performances here (I've never been impressed with any others, truth to tell), she has a lovely time dropping bricks in polite company and blithely accepting the adoration of every man she meets.

Worth a look if you're in a mood for interesting people, not explosions.