Die Frau im Morgenrock

Woman in a Dressing Gown is directed by J. Lee Thompson and written by Ted Willis. It stars Yvonne Mitchell, Anthony Quayle and Sylvia Syms, music is by Louis Levy and cinematography by Gilbert Taylor.

It's something of an inauspicious title, a title hardly conducive to making this piece of film leap out at you, to shout that it's essential British cinema. How wonderful to find that not only is it a title completely befitting the material being played out, but that it is actually essential British cinema.

It's little known and very under seen, in fact myself was only introduced to it by a Canadian friend! The story centers on a London family of three, husband is away earning the corn at the office, teenage son is just starting out in life after school, and mother? She's on housewife auto-pilot, but disorganised with it. Her auto- pilot world is shaken to the core when it is revealed that husband is having an affair with his personal secretary, a smart and beautiful younger sort who is demanding that husband divorces wifey or it's all off...

It sounds very kitchen sink, but actually it's not, it's a very smartly written picture giving credence to mental illness, to the shattering blows of infidelity, of a crumbling family dynamic, a family that in truth is homespun. Ordinary? Yes, but safe as the red brick built poky flat they dwell in. We are not asked to take sides here, to chastise or judge, Thompson and his superb cast merely ask us to delve into their world, to understand it, the psychological humdrum of 50s Britain, the starkness of marriage does mean growing old together, but that nobody ever said it was going to be easy.

Looking at it now it can be viewed as a very important film in the trajectory of British cinema, Mitchell's character is the fulcrum, making the film a must see as regards the evolution of how women have been represented in Brit cinema through the years. Thompson, better known for tough macho fuelled movies on his CV, does a wonderful job in letting us feel the anguish and emotional turbulence. Hazy camera shots couple up with stark framing of the objects in the cramped flat, all marrying up to the fractured nature of Amy & Jim's marriage. There's even humour to be found, very much so, with Louis Levy's musical cue accompaniments deftly shifting from seething passions to Ealing like comedy as the home life of Amy is scattergun in execution.

Kitchen sink, social realist, proto realist and etc? No! This has no pigeon hole to be placed in, it's just terrific film making, from the writing, the performances, the direction and its worth to anyone interested in classic British cinema, this demands to be sought out. And for the record, the last 20 minutes of film will move and invigorate the coldest of hearts. 9/10

Perhaps the only thing stopping this film from being considered part of the British New Wave "kitchen sink drama" movement is that its lead actor isn't an outspoken, idealistic, go-getting younger man. Instead we get middle-aged office manager Anthony Quayle who lives with his slovenly, scatterbrain wife Yvonne Mitchell, never out of the dressing gown which gives the film its title and their young adult son Andrew Ray in their never-tidy flat where she always has music blaring just to add to the maelstrom. Ironically, a kitchen sink is in view in the claustrophobic scenes set in the family's flat, but it's always full of dirty dishes. Quayle's Jim Preston's head is turned by his pretty young secretary Sylvia Sym, whom he illicitly meets on Sundays before heading back to his depressing family life back home. When we join the action he has just decided he will finally tell his wife he will leave her and finally, after an aborted first attempt and emboldened by Sym's prompting, he breaks the news to her. It's fair to say she doesn't take it well.

Bearing the legend on its poster that no one will be allowed entry inside the last ten minutes, the emotional climax reached is credible and understandable if perhaps slightly predictable. The drama really just revolves around the four principals and especially Mitchell's Amy. She never suspects her husband's infidelity thinking that he is content with her and the ramshackle life they have, she just cannot see that her own slatternly ways are driving her man to a younger, prettier, better dressed and organised woman.

Of course this is the U.K. in the 50's where a woman's place for the large part was in the home, the dutiful housewife, whose tasks boil down to getting the nightly family dinner ready, tidying the house and making herself herself presentable to hubby coming in from work. Amy doesn't or indeed can't seem do any of these things but because Quayle's Jimbo as she irritatingly calls him with almost every utterance she makes to him has seemed to accept her as she is for so many years, his request for a divorce still hits her like a bolt from the blue.

Mitchell really is excellent in the title role, often wheedling and pathetic she can seem like a figure to be pitied. One can only feel for her as we follow her attempts to smarten herself up, swigging copiously from a freshly bought bottle of whisky to garner some courage for the showdown she calls for with Quayle and his mistress. I'm not sure I agree however with her being made to be such a helpless victim.

Anyway, the film is an interesting and engrossing peek into the lives of the working class in "You never had it so good" Britain to paraphrase then Prime Minister Harold MacMillan's phrase of the day. I have my reasons for disagreeing with the denouement but this was still a well acted, tightly directed contemporary melodrama and quite as good in its way as any of the recognised breakout films to come out of the U.K. just a few years later.

Behind this unassuming title is a simple premise. It is the story of a man who, having become weary of his domestic life after twenty years of marriage, is tempted to walk out and begin a new relationship with his beautiful young secretary whom he has fallen in love with.

Such a scenario is a familiar one now, having been played out in many a television soap opera, but back in the 1950s when this film was made, extra-marital affairs and divorce carried much more of a stigma than is the case nowadays, and so one might think that this production carries little impact. That is far from the case, however, as this film relies not on sensational plot twists but instead concentrates on the effects that the situation has on the main protagonists. And in doing that it succeeds superbly in conveying the raw emotions of each character.

Anthony Quayle is the man torn between his status as a family man and the promise of an exciting and passionate new life with a beautiful woman who loves him. Quayle could play tough villains well but here he is exemplary playing the weak man, an individual swept along by circumstances rather than by having the drive to make him master of his own destiny. The two different lives he must choose between are personified by the different names each woman calls him: to his long-standing wife he is 'Jimbo', to his secretary he is 'Preston' (his surname). Yet Jim is never presented as a sly, scheming womaniser, only as a good man without the inner strength to be something better.

Sylvia Syms (who would become one of Quayle's co-stars in Ice Cold In Alex the following year) is 'the other woman', the secretary Georgie. The character's background is largely unexplored but we learn enough of her to know that her love for Jim is sincere and that she is not vindictive or manipulative.

But stealing the show is Yvonne Mitchell in a superlative performance as eponymous Amy, Jim's wife. Even after twenty years of marriage Amy is loving and devoted, but she is hapless, disorganised and a little overbearing. Her blind devotion means that she hasn't noticed her husband growing bored with their life, except perhaps on a subconscious level for when the bombshell is dropped, she immediately guesses the reason behind it. The reactions of Amy are varied, not always expected, but wholly convincing and touching. Much of the credit for that must also go to Ted Willis who wrote the screenplay, crafting rich dialogue that skillfully avoids all the hackneyed old cliches that this subject matter often serves up.

J Lee Thompson's direction is considered. He generally keeps the piece tight and close up to maximise the conveyance of feeling, the shots are well composed and occasionally imaginative, and scenes are lit most effectively.

So, does Jim leave Amy or end up staying with her? I won't spoil the outcome here, although the real joy is the getting there and in following a conflict where all three participants are good hearted and evoke sympathy. To pull that off so well is no mean feat.

I remember watching this film as a young girl. It was a bit over my head as far as the complexity of emotions but the situation was quite clear. The story of a middle aged couple: the husband, still attractive and a bit worldly, has become attracted to a young woman...the wife, a bit shop-worn and, having been a housewife and entirely devoted only to her family for nearly two decades, appears dull in the eyes of her husband. However, so moving was the performance of Ms. Mitchell as the wife, so clear the pain and desperation she displayed in attempting to keep her husband when it becomes clear she is losing him, that I remembered nearly every bit of the movie and retained it until years later when I could feel full empathy for her. I see this movie as a sad, sweet study of a universal type of woman: the house-bound, devoted and totally self-sacrificing wife who has, perhaps, given too much of herself to her family and kept too little for herself.

Great black and white film - nostalgic and utterly moving - stunning performances from the main characters, especially the housewife - her downward spiral is a masterclass - it's a must see film for all the right reasons . . .