Esto fue una mujer

Sylvia Russel is akin to Harriet Craig ,one of Joan Crawford's triumphs (1950) ; and Sonia Dresdel's impressive performance compares favorably with her American colleague's.

Sylvia is even more terrifying than Harriet: if eyes could kill ,hers certainly would."Mother's always watching us, her eyes are X rays ". She's a monster , a mentally-ill person , a frustrated woman who hates mediocrity (represented by her meek husband's world which consists of his dog and his roses),who wants power and uses the others as puppets .

She's got everything to live a comfortable bourgeois life: her son and her son-in-law are both doctors .But a routine life does not satisfy her ,the coming of handsome Austin makes her even more destructive .

But it had begun before: a woman asking the vet to put a good old dog to sleep? A mother who warns her daughter against her husband? Who urges her maid to seduce her son-in-law by making her read "lady Chatterley's lover",a book forbidden in the UK till 1960 (an under-the- counter French edition : the novel was first tranferred to the screen by Yves Allégret in 1955 in this country ,but in a chaste way)?

Sylvia gets her kicks by destroying her family's life ; you should see her sweetly smile when she sees her "power" on the others .

This is first-rate film noir ; Sonia Dresdel's piercing eyes (when she watches her sick husband , they will give you the jitters)will haunt you after the viewing .Try to forget them!

1945's "Leave Her to Heaven" is a classic film about an evil and mentally disturbed woman who destroys people. It's a great film. "This Was a Woman" is a similar sort of movie, though not nearly the same quality....mostly because it lacked the subtlety of the Hollywood movie.

The story is set in the home of a well to do English family, the Russells. The mother, Sylvia, is vicious and it's strange that it takes everyone so long to realize this. It's odd, even after putting the family dog to sleep for no particular reason, folks don't seem to think she's a bit off! And why did she do this? Her daughter was getting married and Sylvia didn't approve...so she took the dog to the vet to put it down! Soon after, she does everything she can to ruin the marriage...though you're never really sure why. Later, for kicks, she poisons her husband...something clearly telegraphed in the film when she's caught reading up on that sort of thing.

As I already mentioned, Sylvia isn't exactly subtle and that's a problem with the story. Clearly, she's an awful person but oddly no one in the family seems to notice...until it's too late. Had the movie been more subtle and had Sylvia's actions been more covert, it would have improved it tremendously. Now I am not saying it's a bad film...but with a few minor changes, it could have been marvelous. Instead, it just had me wish I'd re-watched "Leave Her to Heaven".

Fassbinder would have been thrilled if he'd ever seen this incredible gothic melodrama depicting a house full of unhinged females (presided over by malevolent Queen Bee Sonia Dresdel a year before she played Ralph Richardson's horrible wife in 'The Fallen Idol'), the principal victim being the gorgeous Barbara White. The strangely haunting violin score by Mischa Spoliansky adds considerably to the mood.

The formidable Sonia Dresdel reprises her stage role as the monstrous Sylvia Russell, manipulative, sadistic, and finally murderous. Venerating power and success, she demoralizes her husband and schemes to break up her daughter's marriage, though it is not altogether clear as to what she stands to gain from the latter act. In the course of this she attempts to corrupt the maid, including lending her an under-the-counter edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover, then banned in Britain though available in English versions from France, and quite possible to get hold of if you had the money. (Had the prosecutor in the later obscenity trial, who famously asked the jury whether they would be happy if their wives or servants read it, watched this by any chance?). There is also a suggestion of lesbianism as Sylvia strokes the maid's hair, telling her how beautiful she is.

Though some these days could no doubt advance other explanations for Sylvia's behaviour, the original play opened in 1944, and with her cruelty and belief that the ends justify the means, she was surely intended as an embodiment of those evils we were supposedly fighting. It had been written by Joan Morgan, another remarkable woman, an actress in silent films turned playwright who lived on into the present century. In common with several other British films from this period, including Compton Bennett's Daybreak, and Lawrence Huntington's The Upturned Glass, there is a very dark and pessimistic outlook on human nature, reflecting a general mood of despair at recent revelations to the depths to which humanity could sink. Though there is some hope, in that Sylvia's nemesis comes partially through her son, whom has inherited something of her iron will, and as doctor will be caring for rather than destroying others.

The film's main weakness is the lack of any explanation of why Sylvia's poisonous character has never manifested itself previously during all those years she had been bringing up the family. There is no sign of rationing and few people post-war could afford servants so it is presumably set in the late Thirties. It does remain fairly theatrical, though this enables a great power and tension to build in the final scenes. And some of the acting from the younger members of the cast is remarkably feeble. Nevertheless, this is another British film of its time that deserves to be much better known. Not always an easy watch for dog lovers though.

I read recently that Sonia Dresdel made a great ' Hedda Gabler ' on stage, and I can believe it but sadly her films fell far short of that achievement. She fell into the trashy cinematic trap that a lot of 1940's melodrama's fell into; the fundamentally evil woman. In this example she is a woman seeking power and perhaps a better sexual life than she has been having. She reads ' Lady Chatterley's Lover ' and of course in the 1940's this was a forbidden book that only the depraved read and brought over from France. Absurdly she gives it to her female ' servant ' so as to lure her son in law away from his wife. Tellingly her Doctor son considers male sexuality to be ' aggressive ' and inferred in this that it was the natural order of things. Certainly if you want to see a portrait of a repressive and class obsessed UK during this period of cinema then this film is a film to see. Slowly and painfully in society we have hopefully evolved a little from this. Inevitably she kills her husband's dog and on a destructive bent seeks to destroy those around her. Dresdel seemed to enjoy the role as she also played it on stage, and no doubt this was what the public of the time wanted from her. I give this a 4 as the acting and direction is good but the ending was sickening and no doubt again pleasing to the public. Of sociological interest only and for those who still believe we are ' born ' evil.