Uma Certa Casa Suspeita

I could have sworn I saw the name Joseph E. Levine in the opening credits but it's not listed in his IMDb CV which is strange since I was reminded throughout of Joe's sanitized, highly fictionalized biopix, HARLOW and THE CARPETBAGGERS, filmed like an episode of TV's THE UNTOUCHABLES. Based on the best-selling memoirs of the Roaring Twenties' most notorious madam, Polly Adler, A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME was a hoot and a half thanks to too-old-for-the-role Shelley Winters' silly bag of thespic tricks. Make that schticks. As a teen-aged Polish immigrant working in a sweatshop, a kerchiefed Shelley acts like Lucy Ricardo in the chocolate factory and when she meets gangster Robert Taylor (looking haggard and embarrassed) and is too shy to speak, she comes off as more than mildly retarded. Young Polly on her dates looks like the guys are out with their mother and there's one particular scene in a parked car that reminded me of Kim Stanley's embarrassing teen turn in THE GODDESS which, ironically, was a role Shelley would have been perfect for. As pretty (?) Polly rises from naive noodnik to NYC's most influential madam thanks to Bob's sponsorship, the underworld meet the elite while political deals are struck in a brothel that looks more like a parlor call from the parish priest than a house of pleasure. Here's a contemporary review:

"Something was missing in this picture and to be blunt about it, the missing ingredient is sex! There is hardly a suggestion of it. It may or may not discourage impressionable young girls from a life of sin, but it certainly is enough to keep anyone away from the movie!"

Outside of the anecdotal (which couldn't be told), there wasn't much of a story so the movie becomes one long cautionary tale on the perils of prostitution which must have pleased the soon-to-be-out-of-a-job censors no end. Polly's girls reap only drug addiction and suicide while Shelly wrings her hands trying to help and the subtle-as-a-sledgehammer message is a woman who goes that route forfeits any right to love and happiness. The ladies looked lovely, however, and although Edith Head's gowns paid no attention to period detail, I caught a quick glimpse of Raquel Welch filling out one of them but I couldn't spot Edy Williams except in a photograph during the opening credits. It's directed by Russell Rouse, the auteur responsible for the 1966 laugh riot, "The Oscar", and has a Burt Bacharach title tune I forgot as soon as it was over. Helping to lend a TV air to it all were "special guest stars" (love them) like Broderick Crawford and Cesar Romero (as Lucky Luciano) paying lip service to near non-existent plot development but whenever my tastes are accused of being too lowbrow, I usually point with pride to the Academy Award-winning Shelley Winters. Why?? Shelley's down there with the best of them and although she's very good at things like blowzy, I now find her range rather limited -and that's OK. "Com'on Polly, do Theda Bara!" Indeed.

This is a very workmanlike adaptation of Polly Adler's memoirs as a madam , though I can't say how accurate it is since I haven't read the book. But what is in the film is very well narrated, if somewhat episodically, throughout.

Actually, I'm a fan of the Clarence Greene-Russell Rouse cycle of films. With all the flack Rouse is getting in the reviews for The Oscar, let's not forget the team won an Oscar for "Pillow Talk" (1959), which actually beat out Ernest Lehman's screenplay for "North by Northwest."

A major flaw in the film is the characters seem too old for their parts, especially Winters, who hardly looks like an ingenue in the opening scenes. Robert Taylor also looks much too old for the part.

Especially laudable is the downbeat ending, even if it's based on a true life story. What is puzzling is that the Bacharach-David title song was not even nominated for an Oscar, though in my view it should have won the Oscar, especially in the great vocal given it by Brook Benton in the film.

It's rather curious why the song was not even nominated. One possibility is the song had to be used in the film itself to be nominated. And that may have been a misstep by the producers. It would have been very easy to have the singer in the club sing that song rather than "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby."

Also interesting is the distant variations of the song throughout the film, which really was quite original. The song is barely hinted at throughout, never actually completing the melody before the arrangement goes somewhere else, quite inventive scoring.

I should also mention, regarding references to "The Oscar" in the reviews, that Rouse also directed one of the best adult westerns of the 1950s, "The Fastest Gun Alive."

Despite its source, A House Is Not a Home, based on the life of notorious madam Polly Adler, is devoid of insight, conflict, character, pacing or atmosphere. Russell Rouse who directed the camp classic The Oscar is defeated by the script and low budget; there is no sense of period and virtually no exterior scenes. Polly's girls and their clients are the usual assortment of junkies, cops, politicians and gangsters familiar from hundreds of films and television series. The film's theme song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David remains a standard while the film itself is strictly sub standard. It's Raquel Welch's film debut, but she, like Edy Williams, is most visible in the stills that accompany the titles. The unsinkable Winters appeared in a variety of films during the 60s including Lolita, Alfie, A Patch of Blue, Wild in the Streets, The Mad Room, The Balcony, The Scalphunters, Let No Man Write My Epitaph and The Chapman Report, and though she is unconvincing as young Polly, she gives this lackluster film some energy.

I thought the movie was all right I voted an 8 for the movie. I saw it for the first time last year. I am just happy I have this movie in my collection of old classic movies. It is always a treasure to add old classic movies to your collection.

Shelley Winters plays Polly Adler, real-life New York City cathouse proprietress in the 1930s who fell inadvertently into the sex-for-sale business after seeking help from a big-time bootlegger following a rape and an eviction. Although adapted from Adler's (ghostwritten) autobiography, this entertainingly tawdry movie plays more like an adult version of TV's "Playhouse 90" rather than a salacious expose. Dotted with 'shocking' words ("I'm a WHORE!"), and saddled with a bland production design so generic it's often difficult to get a reading on the characters, it isn't any wonder the only aspect of the film to survive the years is its title tune, written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach. Winters is fine in the latter portion of the plot (and does well with a teary telephone scene in the final reel), but she's hopeless when depicting the more demure Polly in her early years. Raquel Welch makes one of her first movie appearances as one of Polly's girls (she's usually found hovering on the edges of group shots), while Cesar Romero plays gangster "Lucky" Luciano as if he were running for office. ** from ****