In the small Irish Catholic village of Doon, the shopkeeper's wife gives birth to twins, revealing to the quick-witted and the gossip that it was the shopkeeper who impregnated the village seamstress, who has two twin girls and four more children by five different men, one of whom died in World War II. The shopkeeper tries to get her removed from the village or her children taken away, as she considers her an immoral woman.
When I sat down to view the conditions of a copy, I liked it so much that I ended up watching it all. I was touched by its ease. A 1958 film that spoke frankly about a single mother with multiple children from different fathers in a humorous tone and without condemning her? I later read that the film was banned in several cities, probably by one of the "leagues of decency " that Christian churches used to organize in the 20th century.
In 2001, the Irish Film Archive re-released the film shot in Technicolor, almost 50 years after it was made. Based on Una Troy's novel «We Are Seven,» it was directed by Cyril Frankel, a filmmaker who made two notable films for Hammer Film: «Never Take Sweets from a Stranger», a drama about pedophilia, with a rich old satyr who is one of the most fearsome "monsters" in the history of cinema; and Joan Fontaine's last film, «The Witches,» a folk horror drama about Satanist agrarian rites.
Frankel made movies and television for 40 years. Early in his career he made an ethnographic film called «Man from Africa» (1953), about the migration of the Bagika people in the territory of Uganda, at low cost and with a crew of seven people. When he went from documentary to dramatization, Frankel used the people of the tribe and achieved a natural portrait, far from the mocking stereotypes that were made of blacks at that time. The film was restored and shown in 2011 with the presence of Frankel, who was 90 years old and showed his erudition in the subsequent dialogue with the public. This work is very well evaluated and is perhaps his best film.
In «She Didn't Say No,» in a different tone and in a less wild environment, Frankel shows his affection in the good handling of the material, adapted by Troy, a novelist and also a playwright. It is a story told in several voices and the seamstress, her six children, their living parents, the wives of those men, plus the doctor, the sergeant, the teacher and the town judge receive equal treatment and screen time. Scottish actress Eileen Herlie (who played Queen Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, in Laurence Olivier's classic 1944 film version) is the dressmaker at the center of the story here, and shines in her scenes for her sensitivity and restraint.
If there's one thing that can be criticized about the film, it could be that it is hyper-optimistic, with not one, but two or three happy endings. But who can dislike a 1950s story that cleverly and good-naturedly takes on its most dramatic details (such as the seamstress's abuse by four men in her search for a surrogate father for her eldest daughter)? The script by Troy and T. J. Morrison links all the stories together very well and leads us to a happy resolution. Highly recommended.
