Uma Sombra em Sua Vida

This is Yvonne Mitchell's film, of course, and definitely her best performance. Anthony Quayle is as always one of the most reliable actors there ever was, and here for a change he is to play an extremely ordinary part: this could happen to anyone, and it usually happens sooner or later to everyone. The situation couldn't be more common. Sylvia Syms is beautiful as usual and doesn't have to act much, it's enough for her just to be seen, and she actually plays no great part - she is just the other woman. The acting is all Yvonne Mitchell's.

Of course you have to worry about her, as her heart is torn apart, as her world is turned to shambles, as she desperately tries to find a way out and fails in every single effort, and how she stills goes on just to carry on. She is the most helpless of all, and yet she is the one who carries through and gets through the crisis in a wreck of only shambles, as if you needed to get your whole world totally ruined just to find it all perfectly normal, as if nothing had happened, as if it just had to pass by like an ordinary shower of rain...

The direction is superb throughout with all its diverting manoeuvres focussing on petty dertails for a relief, like a missing button, the baby next door (apparently Mitchell's own), the soap problem with the engagement ring, and above all the shabby old drsssing gown - the very symbol of the film, nothing much, just an ordinary old worn out dressing gown, which you never really get out of...

This film from 1957 warns married women that too much devotion to husband & family often rebounds as they may often be tempted to take you for granted and start treating you like an unpaid servant.The trend now is for intelligent married women to have some "me time" which could involve developing their hobbies, pastimes interests & travelling on their own.Married women in 1957 were not so independent and relied too much on their husbands for emotional support and for material comforts.Of course today in 2018 the woman's movement has done a lot to help their own sex and with two female prime ministers, equal sexual rights legislation, and has changed a great deal for women over the last 60 years.Yvonne Mitchell's character is not well educated but always means well in dealing with her family.She is disorganised and inefficient which seems to cause great frustration to Anthony Quaile who plays her husband and who feels life has been slipping away from him and feels impelled to seek an office affair with his secretary (played by Sylvia Sims) at the firm of timber importers at which they both work.Young Andrew Ray (son of comic Ted Ray) plays their son who is caught in the middle of his parents marital strife.I rated this wholly British produced B&W film 7/10 which I saw on "Talking Pictures" channel 81 tonight.

I have only recently seen this film, and it's baffling how I missed seeing such a good film for so long. The story could be looked on as a humdrum kitchen sink drama, but it's so much more than that. It centres on a common situation in which a married man becomes disillusioned with his marriage and has an affair with a work colleague. The acting of the main players is totally believable, and flawlessly evokes the emotional complexities of their situation. Special mention should be made of Yvonne Mitchell, who plays the the wronged wife. She gives one of the best performances I've ever seen by any actress. She deserved to be oscar nominated for this. If you haven't seen this film then it's a MUST see. It's that good.

Perhaps the only thing stopping this film from being considered part of the British New Wave "kitchen sink drama" movement is that its lead actor isn't an outspoken, idealistic, go-getting younger man. Instead we get middle-aged office manager Anthony Quayle who lives with his slovenly, scatterbrain wife Yvonne Mitchell, never out of the dressing gown which gives the film its title and their young adult son Andrew Ray in their never-tidy flat where she always has music blaring just to add to the maelstrom. Ironically, a kitchen sink is in view in the claustrophobic scenes set in the family's flat, but it's always full of dirty dishes. Quayle's Jim Preston's head is turned by his pretty young secretary Sylvia Sym, whom he illicitly meets on Sundays before heading back to his depressing family life back home. When we join the action he has just decided he will finally tell his wife he will leave her and finally, after an aborted first attempt and emboldened by Sym's prompting, he breaks the news to her. It's fair to say she doesn't take it well.

Bearing the legend on its poster that no one will be allowed entry inside the last ten minutes, the emotional climax reached is credible and understandable if perhaps slightly predictable. The drama really just revolves around the four principals and especially Mitchell's Amy. She never suspects her husband's infidelity thinking that he is content with her and the ramshackle life they have, she just cannot see that her own slatternly ways are driving her man to a younger, prettier, better dressed and organised woman.

Of course this is the U.K. in the 50's where a woman's place for the large part was in the home, the dutiful housewife, whose tasks boil down to getting the nightly family dinner ready, tidying the house and making herself herself presentable to hubby coming in from work. Amy doesn't or indeed can't seem do any of these things but because Quayle's Jimbo as she irritatingly calls him with almost every utterance she makes to him has seemed to accept her as she is for so many years, his request for a divorce still hits her like a bolt from the blue.

Mitchell really is excellent in the title role, often wheedling and pathetic she can seem like a figure to be pitied. One can only feel for her as we follow her attempts to smarten herself up, swigging copiously from a freshly bought bottle of whisky to garner some courage for the showdown she calls for with Quayle and his mistress. I'm not sure I agree however with her being made to be such a helpless victim.

Anyway, the film is an interesting and engrossing peek into the lives of the working class in "You never had it so good" Britain to paraphrase then Prime Minister Harold MacMillan's phrase of the day. I have my reasons for disagreeing with the denouement but this was still a well acted, tightly directed contemporary melodrama and quite as good in its way as any of the recognised breakout films to come out of the U.K. just a few years later.

Great black and white film - nostalgic and utterly moving - stunning performances from the main characters, especially the housewife - her downward spiral is a masterclass - it's a must see film for all the right reasons . . .