A Vida Íntima de Uma Mulher

Maureen O'Hara confesses to shooting her protégée (Gloria Grahame) in "A Woman's Secret," costarring Melvyn Douglas. Though this is a drama, it actually has a witty script, a light touch, and wonderful performances.

Most of the story is told in flashbacks as Douglas, who plays a pianist/songwriter, describes to police detective Jay C. Flippen why it was impossible for O'Hara to have shot the singer Estrelita, whom O'Hara and Douglas discovered and helped make famous.

Melvyn Douglas' years as a great actor came later in his life. For most of his career, he sailed through roles that were beneath his abilities. He delivers his lines here with a dry wit and is delightful. Grahame does a great job as the singer. She's cute, sexy, and funny without meaning to be and, though the character is very self-involved, she's somewhat endearing. O'Hara's role doesn't allow for any humor, and she carries it off well. O'Hara had a lovely soprano voice and starred in a Broadway show, "Christine," but it isn't clear whether or not she did her own singing in the film.

Some of the best scenes, though, are provided by Jay C. Flippen and Mary Phillips, who play husband and wife. She's a little too interested in his police work, but their love shines through.

All in all, a good watch.

Maureen O'Hara loses her voice to one of those strange diseases that abound in movies, and drives a young woman (Gloria Grahame) as an understudy. That is where the fun begins. The story is told in flashback, and is reminiscent of All About Eve, although as if told in reverse. Melvyn Douglas is a forerunner of Addison de Witt and the viewer can see resemblances in the other characters. This is probably one of Gloria Grahames' best performances, with Melvyn Douglas giving a polished display and Jay C Flippen as the Police Inspector a delight. The end is a trifle weak, and slightly confusing, but this sleeper is a great little time filler. Don't expect it ever to appear in any list of greatest movies of all time however.

A WOMAN'S SECRET is a melodramatic noir style mystery based on a Vicki Baum story, played in florid fashion by MAUREEN O'HARA, MELVYN DOUGLAS and GLORIA GRAHAME, all of whom are a bit over-the-top under Nichols Ray's direction.

O'Hara is the tough ex-singer promoter of the singing career of Grahame, and plays some of her argumentative moments as though she's Joan Crawford brandishing a gun in "Mildred Pierce". She gives the whole part a surface temperament of angry emotions that doesn't quite ring true, alternating with sweeter moments. She does get a chance to demonstrate her pleasant singing voice, unlike Grahame who is dubbed.

After confessing to shooting Grahame during a heated argument over Gloria's decision to quit her career, she tells her story in flashback. Her good friend, MELVYN DOUGLAS, also fills in some of her background with another flashback, a la "Mildred Pierce" and "Laura" techniques.

Douglas is a piano accompanist who refers to Grahame's singing voice as "a voice with hormones". He has some clever lines and plays the film's most believable character. BILL WILLIAMS shows up midway through the story as Grahame's friend (in a wasted role) who's anxious to see that O'Hara gets punishment for shooting Grahame. "I hope they hang her!"

Unfortunately, it's also at the midway point that the story starts to lose interest, as the mystery is slow to clear up and the story rambles on with still another flashback full of exposition by Douglas about past events.

A tighter script without all the flashbacks and a more direct way of telling the story might have made for improvements. As it is, it has a promising start but loses its way, stumbling in a strand of back stories long before any final explanation is given.

No need to recap the plot, which I couldn't do anyway. In fact, just what the screenplay is aiming at may be the movie's biggest secret. Is it a mystery—well no, since early on the camera shows Marian (O'Hara) pulling the trigger. Is it a noir—hardly, since the atmosphere is pretty conventional. Is it a love story (a Ray specialty)—well maybe, except who loves whom is not always clear. Sure, a movie doesn't have to be pigeon-holed to be good. But the trouble here is that Secret is simply too muddled to fit anywhere, and that's despite a luminescent turn from the incomparable Gloria Grahame.

Director Ray was especially expert at getting triumphs from love story actresses—Cathy O'Donnell, Allene Roberts, Natalie Wood, et al. No wonder Grahame fell for him in real life. However, critics are right: Jory and Douglas are both a shade too old (circa, 50) for 20-something O'Hara and Grahame. Plus, pity poor Bill Williams whose one-note, unnecessary part suggests he wandered onto the wrong set. Then there's the ill- advised comedy relief from the cop's wife that erupts half-way through as if some studio higher-up suddenly intervened.

Hard to believe cult director Ray had anything to do with this muddle. Clearly, he only went through the motions, probably as a result of an unwanted studio assignment (RKO). Too bad. But, I doubt anyone could have salvaged such confused material.

While he waited (and waited) for his unique debut feature 'Your Red Wagon' to be released Nicholas Ray churned out this breezy potboiler which was probably the nearest he came to making a comedy (Mary Phillips is a blast as detective Jay C. Flippen's feisty wife). Just as 'Your Red Wagon' finally hit cinemas as 'They Live by Night', so the shooting title here was 'The Long Denial' (the original novel by Vickie Baum was called 'Mortgage from Life') but it eventually became 'A Woman's Secret'.

Written and produced by Herman Mankiewicz, it resembles a light-hearted cross between 'All About Eve' and 'Rashomon'. A bonus for Ray proved second lead Gloria Grahame, playing a torch singer who went under the name Estrellita, with whom he quickly became an item (Patrick McGilligan later observed that she "had been alluring in earlier film appearances, but Ray would make her glow as never before in his new film") and married as soon as her divorce came through.