The Truth About Women

This is one of those English mystery movies--it's a mystery as to what it's supposed to be about, what the audience is supposed to feel, why it was made... Laurence Harvey, that sly little sexpot, is cast as a terribly nice chap with a titled and ostensibly wealthy father who goes around the world having sexless relationships with women of different nationalities. He marries one after being stuck in a lift with her for a few hours and deciding he is in love. (They have had a nice chat--can't you see the face James Bond is making?)

The writing is banal and keeps hinting at something saucy or comic that never materialises. Though the movie is set in the years before and during World War I, everything is in a Fifties high-fashion palette of sugar-almond colours--pastel blue and green, mauve. If I had to pick one moment that exemplifies the phoniness, it's when Harvey dons native dress and greasepaint in order to sneak into a harem to save an innocent girl (yes, that old thing). Reminded by his chum that he must not speak, he enthusiastically agrees by rolling his eyes, jerking his head to one side, striking a pose, and sticking his tongue all the way out. In other words, he behaves not at all like a young Englishman of the early twentieth century and entirely like an actor throwing himself into an acting exercise.

I laughed once.

Strangely for an anthology film co-written and directed by a woman (Muriel Box), the onscreen time is dominated by males, rather than females. I suppose the fact that the film was made in the 50's may have something to do with it. But anyone expecting some clever, perceptive comedy such as Nancy Meyer's What Women Want will be sorely disappointed.

What we get is a parade of different women across 6 short stories of varying length, detailing their various relationships with Lawrence Harvey playing British Foreign Office diplomat/official Humphrey Tavistock who weirdly spends much of his time complaining to various women or just about any character nearby, how little he gets paid.

Most of the stories are unfunny, undramatic rubbish. A case in point, the story set in Turkey involving harems for goodness sake.

Things are a little better, with the story involving Helen, the girl Tavistock first marries after meeting her in an elevator. This is the episode that actually feels closest to real life. Julie Harris is appealing in a genuine girl next door, rather than movie star type role. But just as the film begins to develop an emotional core through her likeable character, she dies offscreen in child birth and Tavistock moves on to the next chapter of his life.

Here we find out Sir Humphrey (as a knight of the realm, he can't have been that bloody poor) has married Ambrosine Viney, an independent woman ahead of her time, who he met and from whom he was clearly intimidated by, in the first story. This was the most interesting of the selection, as Diane Cilento, playing an early 20th century free-thinking feminist, has a number of speeches with which, I feel many contemporary women wouldn't disagree.

It's just regretful that these stated beliefs of equality of gender/status and opportunities for women weren't central to the whole film, rather than just placed as bookends to a rather uninteresting, dull compendium of other stories.