Three Secrets

Spin offs, copy cats clones, Three Secrets is easily compared to its earlier & far better film A Letter To 3 Wives Basically both plots involve 3 women in a quandry.or a dilemma..in 3 Wives .one of their husbands has run away with another woman (Miss Addie Ross).. who which ? stream of conciousness flashbacks..witty & brilliantly directed by Joseph L.Mankiewiecz a superb cast & even better supporting cast "Letter "is one of the all time great films.."Tree Secrets 3 women face another dilemma, a boy is involved in a plane crash in the mountains. Boy was adopted by parents who were killed in crash..Boy survives crash 3 women gave birth to a boy same day..& gave up for adoption to the same shelter..Whos child is this? Does anyone care.?Yes it is agood film very a sorbing & very well acted. 3very good actresses Eleanor Parker Patricia Neal & Ruth Roman are the 3 women in despair,,and give very fine performances.Direction is very good also by future Oscar winner Robert Wise.. but a lot is borrowed from "Letter" the basic 3 women plot, the miasma, and the stream of concsiousness flashbacks.They worked well for "Letter" & work well here also... but the conclusion is smaltzy & the film lacks the wit and intelligence of its predecessor.. Worth seeing.. a "Chick" flick & some good actors involved..but Letter to 3 Wives is an original & a masterpiece !!

A young boy is the sole survivor of a plane that went down in the mountains and a rescue mission of mountain-climbers are on their way to get him. The news flash reveals that today is his birthday and that he had been adopted through a certain agency. When Eleanor Parker hears this, she loses it, as she had given her baby up five years ago and that today would have been his birthday. She never told husband Leif Ericson. She hightails to the site where the press is stationed near the mountains. There she meets Patricia Neal and Ruth Roman, who both had used the same agency to give up their babies on the same day. Through the device of flashbacks, we are allowed the story of each and how each came to this point of their lives. This is excellent little film with great actresses for the lead roles, fleshing out the characters and making them three-dimensional. I grant you actresses like Bette Davis, Susan Hayward, and Joan Crawford has guts, but no one could quite deliver a line like Patricia Neal with her sarcastic coyness. And, Ruth Roman is one tough cookie, too. But the story is what really takes center stage with a taut pace and the outdoors being used to good advantage by the film's director. But who's baby is it? We are told, but there is more to it than any happy ending. The film reflects the struggles, loves, and yes secrets of three women, who were existing in a world and trying to come out a survivor, and that's what makes this film successful: the story of people. People are the story.

Everything is perfect about this film, the story, the actors, the direction, Wise at an early stage extremely efficient, and even the music, never dominating but always reflecting the right mood. This is a literary film telling the stories of three women who all had to give up their only child because of circumstances, usually related to the war: the child was born September 15th 1944, so they all got pregnant at the highlight of the war, one by a soldier who had to obey orders, and the other two by men who left them - one of them we'll never even see. At the same time, it's a great story of journalism, Patricia Neal making the almost too perfect journalist which costs her her marriage, and the insights into her handling her profession in the quest for saving the child from the top of a mountain are almost documentary in their authentic character, while at the same time it develops into somethinbg of a thriller - there is even a murder here. Enough said, only superlatives, and they can only be repeated and continuously insisted on.

A plane crashes on a mountain peak. Everyone is dead, except possibly the five-year-old adopted son of two of the passengers. As reporters gather to cover the story of the men preparing to climb to mountain to rescue the child, the movie concentrates on three women present: tough-as-nails reporter Patricia Neal, married, childless housewife Eleanor Parker, and Ruth Roman, convicted of slaying the father of her unborn child. Each had given a child up for adoption on the same day to the same adoption agency, the day the child was adopted.

The situation is remarkably similar to Wilder's mordant ACE IN THE HOLE, but Robert Wise's movie is more about the story of the three women and their suffering. The performances are prime work; even Leif Erickson as Miss Parker's lawyer husband recites his few lines in stalwart tones. 1920s Sennett clown Billy Bevan gets three lines, and other actors like Frank Lovejoy and Larry Keating give good performances, but the emphasis is on the three women: tamped-down Miss Neal, fragile Miss Parker and almost hysterical Miss Roman. I'm not terribly fond of these stories, but this is a well told one.

Three women review their past lives while they wait for news that will change the future totally for one of them.

But it isn't "Letter to Three Wives"!

Putting aside the shameless use of the formula from Mankiewicz' masterwork, "Three Secrets" is an enjoyable, well-written drama. Another similarity to "... Three Wives", and one that I have no objection to, is leads Patricia Neal, Eleanor Parker & Ruth Roman being mature, extremely attractive women; not a teenybopper or nymphet in sight.

A second movie that came to mind while watching "Three Secrets" was "The Big Carnival" with its media circus of cynical reporters covering and exploiting a disaster. However Wilder's film followed this one.

The beautiful Cole Porter tune `I get a kick out of you' is well used on the soundtrack.