Secret de femme

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.

With elements of All About Eve, Mildred Pierce and Trapeze in it, A Woman's Secret hardly rates as being as good as one of the three films mentioned. Maybe the title is wrong, there really is no secret about anything here.

If A Woman's Secret has earned any place at all in cinema history it's because director Nicholas Ray met and fell for Gloria Grahame on the set of this film. He became her second husband.

As for the film, retired singer now manager Maureen O'Hara has a quarrel with her protégé Gloria Grahame. Later on when Grahame is shot and critically wounded, O'Hara is brought in for questioning.

Composer and critic Melvyn Douglas in a character based on parts of Alexander Woollcott, Clifton Fadiman, and Oscar Levant just simply doesn't believe the whole thing. He lobbies vigorously on O'Hara's behalf with investigating detective Jay C. Flippen. But it's Flippen's wife, Mary Phillips, who actually finds the key. The answer is really rather obvious, but it's how the story is unraveled that's the key to the film.

Nicholas Ray went on to direct a whole lot better films and the suspense factor just isn't there for me in this one. The very professional cast go through their required paces. Others in the ensemble include Victor Jory as a criminal attorney that Douglas brings in for O'Hara who knows both of them and Bill Williams, a former GI who was to marry Grahame.

With their only being a small amount of alternate probabilities other than O'Hara trying to commit murder, there's not much of a secret to A Woman's Secret.

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.

I'm not going to bother with the silly story behind this farce. There are several other reviews with that info. The film is full of great actors and Maureen O'Hara is stunningly beautiful. Although there's enough talent to keep you entertained up to the end, my main concern is what this film is not.

It is not a whodunit, although Jay C. Flippen as police inspector Jim Fowler at one point says it is. It is not Film Noir, although one flashback scene looks very noirish. Finally, it is certainly not an "All About Eve" as the film is actually all about nobody. In fact, it was impossible for me to figure out why most of the characters do what they do -- but, maybe you can.

Why does the police inspector sit and listen to Melvyn Douglas drone on for hours about what a great gal the Maureen O'Hara character is? Why does Maureen O'Hara insist that she is guilty? Why does Gloria Grahame have a German Luger in her purse? Why does the police inspector's wife suddenly turn into a detective? Why is Bill Williams even in the movie?

There are many more inexplicable questions that I felt were never answered, but I guess it's just A Woman's Secret.

Maureen O'Hara should have been a star, she was a brilliant singer but her vocal chords gave out just as she was about to make it big. Rather than fade away, she used her formidable drive and intelligence to manage another singer to stardom, the lovely but dense Gloria Grahame. As the movie opens she is arrested for shooting Grahame, and the movie tells their story in flashback form.

I liked this movie a lot, it's intelligent and engrossing, and one of the few films of the period to focus on the relationship between two women. They need each other to achieve anything, but are complete opposites. O'Hara is focused, driven, smart, savvy and lives for her work; and Grahame is a dim-witted, good-natured bimbo who'd just like to enjoy life. The conflicts between them grow and grow as the movie progresses, building up until we come back to the shooting of Grahame.

The performances are good, as they should be in a character-driven film like this. O'Hara is as strong and smart as she usually is, and enjoys the chance to explore feelings not found in her usual romantic roles. It's priceless to watch her react to Grahame's blitherings. Grahame gives one of her best performances here (I've never been impressed with any others, truth to tell), she has a lovely time dropping bricks in polite company and blithely accepting the adoration of every man she meets.

Worth a look if you're in a mood for interesting people, not explosions.