La casa de Madame

This is a very workmanlike adaptation of Polly Adler's memoirs as a madam , though I can't say how accurate it is since I haven't read the book. But what is in the film is very well narrated, if somewhat episodically, throughout.

Actually, I'm a fan of the Clarence Greene-Russell Rouse cycle of films. With all the flack Rouse is getting in the reviews for The Oscar, let's not forget the team won an Oscar for "Pillow Talk" (1959), which actually beat out Ernest Lehman's screenplay for "North by Northwest."

A major flaw in the film is the characters seem too old for their parts, especially Winters, who hardly looks like an ingenue in the opening scenes. Robert Taylor also looks much too old for the part.

Especially laudable is the downbeat ending, even if it's based on a true life story. What is puzzling is that the Bacharach-David title song was not even nominated for an Oscar, though in my view it should have won the Oscar, especially in the great vocal given it by Brook Benton in the film.

It's rather curious why the song was not even nominated. One possibility is the song had to be used in the film itself to be nominated. And that may have been a misstep by the producers. It would have been very easy to have the singer in the club sing that song rather than "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby."

Also interesting is the distant variations of the song throughout the film, which really was quite original. The song is barely hinted at throughout, never actually completing the melody before the arrangement goes somewhere else, quite inventive scoring.

I should also mention, regarding references to "The Oscar" in the reviews, that Rouse also directed one of the best adult westerns of the 1950s, "The Fastest Gun Alive."

This is not a great movie, but it is not a bad movie either. It looks more like a movie made in 1944 than one made in 1964. The fact that it is in black and white probably adds to that feeling.

Shelly Winters does a good job with the script she has to work with. It has some cute scenes and some omissible ones Good costumes, and workable scenery. If you are looking for an accurate portrayal of Polly Adler or even a good story based on the book, this movie comes up lacking. But like a lot of not great movies, it is very watchable.

Lots of great actors appear in cameo roles in this movie, making it a good movie to say, "I never knew he/she made a movie like this."

I saw this movie in the theater and it has taken me 40 years to see it again. While I liked it better the first time, it provides a good trip down memory lane and one I am very glad to have in my collection.

Shelley Winters plays Polly Adler, real-life New York City cathouse proprietress in the 1930s who fell inadvertently into the sex-for-sale business after seeking help from a big-time bootlegger following a rape and an eviction. Although adapted from Adler's (ghostwritten) autobiography, this entertainingly tawdry movie plays more like an adult version of TV's "Playhouse 90" rather than a salacious expose. Dotted with 'shocking' words ("I'm a WHORE!"), and saddled with a bland production design so generic it's often difficult to get a reading on the characters, it isn't any wonder the only aspect of the film to survive the years is its title tune, written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach. Winters is fine in the latter portion of the plot (and does well with a teary telephone scene in the final reel), but she's hopeless when depicting the more demure Polly in her early years. Raquel Welch makes one of her first movie appearances as one of Polly's girls (she's usually found hovering on the edges of group shots), while Cesar Romero plays gangster "Lucky" Luciano as if he were running for office. ** from ****

I thought the movie was all right I voted an 8 for the movie. I saw it for the first time last year. I am just happy I have this movie in my collection of old classic movies. It is always a treasure to add old classic movies to your collection.

The problem I found with A House Is Not A Home is that it was made at the worst time possible. Ten to fifteen years earlier the cast would have been better suited for their roles. Ten to fifteen years later and the Code would have been gone and a more honest film might have emerged.

Shelley Winters a tad younger would have been perfect casting in the part of New York City's famous bordello madam. Still she does the best she can with the part. Folks like Robert Taylor, Cesar Romero, and Broderick Crawford are too old for the roles they played and show it. Romero plays Lucky Luciano who was in his late thirties when Thomas E. Dewey sent him to prison not in his fifties as Romero is, distinguished as he always looked.

According to The Films of Robert Taylor, he was not happy with his work here, but took the role because he had a young family to support. And a more brutally honest film was something he'd never have consented to appear in anyway.

Some young actresses who played Polly's girls gave some over the top performances. Understandable they didn't have careers of any substantial length.

A House Is Not a Home will not be remembered by Robert Taylor's fans as one of his great films and it was a bad bump in the road in the career of Shelley Winters.