The Unholy Wife

The comment by Melvelvit also on this site is fantastic...and I think he is right. I have only just discovered this - yes - lurid thriller - made in the final days of RKO, and it is as much fun in a demented way as it is genuinely interesting. Now that I have seen the film again with Melvelvit's believable comments under my, er, belt, well, it might just be Rod Steiger after all, and not poor Diana at all who is the genuine Unholy Wife. All that (later) Baby Jane and Charlotte campery can be seen it its seed form in this well produced, decorated stylish dark mansion melodrama...complete with trashy rodeo handsome hick and lusty barfly floozies for added tarty extras. Imagine running a cinema in the mid to late 50s and having RKO call you once a month offering double features of any of these mix'n'match titles: SON OF SINBAD / THE FRENCH LINE / SLIGHTLY SCARLET / INFERNO / THE UNHOLY WIFE/ THE GIRL MOST LIKELY etc. What a life there was for some excited cinema goer!

I am quite surprised what little attention this film garnered both when it was first released in 1957, and again by the film historians of today. In my humble opinion this film is a classic film noir that includes a very good script, great acting and a seasoned director in John Farrow who prior to this film, had a resume most other directors would envy.

Diana Dors plays Phyllis Hochen who was a sex pot in the 1950's and her hour glass figure was on full display as the cheating wife of Paul Hochen played by the great actor Rod Steiger whose resume is as long as my arms. Phyllis had planned to kill her older aged and rich husband Paul , but as the old saying goes "the best laid plans" and so it goes. Phyllis shoots the wrong guy by mistake but quickly pulls together an alternative scheme to fool her husband into taking the fall for the killing of his own best friend which she says was an accident.

As another old saying goes "love is blind" so the gullible husband Paul agrees to Phyllis's scheme in which he tells the sheriff that he shot his own best friend but little does Paul know that Phyllis's alternate plan has been set up to find her husband Paul guilty of first degree murder so he would at minimum go to prison for life, or even worse be hanged at the gallows.

Phyllis is cheating on Paul with a rugged good looking and younger bronco busting rodeo man named San Sanders played by Tom Tryon and her plan is to take Paul for all his money and squander it with her lover San. Living with Paul and his cheating wife are Paul's mother and Phyllis's young son. Paul also has a brother who is a devoted priest who symbolizes truth and celibacy, but the sexy Phyllis even has Paul's brother the priest fooled.

This is a very good film noir and I am convinced that all that was missing for this film to have gone onto great fame and accolades and maybe even a few Oscars, would be to have a top five director such as Alfred Hitchcock to have directed the film and without changing even one snippet of the films presentation, or the actors, the film would have received instant recognition and Oscar nominations. I really believe that.

It is well worth watching at least twice. I give it a solid 7 out of 10 IMDB rating.

For some reason this film has a "B-movie" quality about it and I think it has something to do with the lead actress, Diana Dors. Although some have referred to her as, "the English Marilyn Monroe", she just doesn't seem to have the "on-screen presence" that Marilyn had. At least, I don't think so. Because of this, while she is certainly very pretty, I never quite got that intrigued with her performance in this picture. Her acting seemed kind of bland and "wooden". Be that as it may, in this film she plays "Phyllis Hochen" who is the conniving wife of a rich wine-maker ("Paul Hochen") played by Rod Steiger. But she doesn't love him. Instead she is having an affair with a local rodeo cowboy named "San Sanders" (Tom Tryon). Being terribly unhappy with Paul she schemes to get rid of him. Anyway, so much for the plot which is pretty basic and has been used any number of times. While I don't want to sound terribly negative, I will say that one thing I didn't care for was the technique used which had her telling her story from a jail cell in the past tense. Now, I realize that this is a typical film-noir technique but (when used) it often seems to take some of the mystery out of it. Anyway, add in an average script, weak directing (John Farrow) and mediocre acting all around and it pretty much rates a "5 out of 10". While it wasn't "great" I suppose it was an "okay" way to spend an hour and a half.

As devoted to Blonde Bombshells as I am to food and oxygen, on first viewing The Unholy Wife I really wanted / NEEDED this film to be great. It's not - but DO SEE IT. Forget the plot and just absorb yourself in Hollywood's version of mid-fifties womanhood as a drippingly lacquered Dors, encased in silver lame', is unconvincingly rammed down the audiences throat as a heartless, lusting bitch. Enjoy.

An important film that deserves attention for two reasons: 1. An unusual story, of an evil woman who actually shows respect for religion; 2 For an unusual low-key, yet convincing performance from Rod Steiger and an interesting one by the beautiful Diana Dors. Actor Tom Tryon is given third billing for a brief role, while the more important role of the priest and brother of the Rod Steiger character acted by Arthur Franz is given lower billing. The direction is just average fare. But the tale written by an unknown writer named William Durkee is interesting.