Woman in a Dressing Gown

Woman in a Dressing Gown is a 1957 British drama film directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Yvonne Mitchell, Anthony Quayle, Sylvia Syms, and Carole Lesley.[2] The film won four awards at the 7th Berlin International Film Festival including "Best Foreign Film".[3] Mitchell won the Silver Bear for Best Actress.[4] The film also won the 1958 Golden Globe Award for Best English-Language Foreign Film.[5]

Woman in a Dressing Gown
Danish poster
Directed byJ. Lee Thompson
Produced byFrank Godwin
J. Lee Thompson
Written byTed Willis
Based onTV play by Willis
StarringYvonne Mitchell
Anthony Quayle
Sylvia Syms
Carole Lesley
Music byLouis Levy
CinematographyGilbert Taylor
Edited byRichard Best
Production
company
Godwin-Willis Productions
Distributed byAssociated British-Pathé
Release date
June 1957 (1957-06)
Running time
93 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Box office£450,000 (UK)
£1 million (total)[1]

The screenplay was written by Ted Willis and the cinematographer was Gilbert Taylor. The producer was Frank Godwin.[6]

Plot

The Prestons are an apparently happy household made up of wife Amy (Yvonne Mitchell), husband Jim (Anthony Quayle) and teenage son Brian (Andrew Ray), living in a cramped flat on a London housing estate. However, tensions soon become clear. Though she has a breezy, loving character, Amy is a disorganised housewife, and finds it difficult to concentrate enough to tidy or cook properly. Jim is having an affair with a colleague, Georgie (Sylvia Syms), who threatens to break it off unless Jim divorces his wife and leaves his family. He promises that he will do so, and eventually demands a divorce. Amy is shocked and distraught, while Brian becomes angry with his father.

Amy invites Jim and Georgie back to the Prestons' flat to try to convince Georgie not to take her husband away. In preparation, she gets her hair done, buys whisky for her husband and tries to organise a meal, paying for it all by pawning her engagement ring. However, on leaving the hairdresser's she is caught in the rain, ruining the hairdo. At home, after discussing the matter with a neighbour, a young unhappy wife, who persuades Amy to have a drink to calm her down, Amy becomes drunk and falls asleep on the bed, again ruining her plans. After a confrontation she orders Jim and Georgie out of the flat. Jim leaves, but has second thoughts, returning to his wife and son, who cautiously accept him back.[7]

Cast

Production

The film was based on a 1956 ITV Television Playhouse play written by Ted Willis.[8][9]

Reception

Box Office

The film was one of the most popular at the British box office in 1957.[10] J Lee Thompson later said the film lost money but was well received by critics.[11]

Critical

Variety said it "had good b.o. possibilities."[12]

The New York Times said "Paddy Chayefsky would love it."[13]

Jean-Luc Godard wrote "One really has to rack one’s brains to find anything to say about a British film. One wonders why. But that’s the way it is. And there isn’t even an exception to prove the rule. Especially not Woman in a Dressing-gown anyhow, in spite of its acting prize? at the recent Berlin Festival. That just goes to show that the Germans have no idea either.... From beginning to end the film is an incredible debauch of camera movements as complex as they are silly and meaningless."[14]

On the film's rerelease on in 2012, Peter Bradshaw, in a five star review for The Guardian wrote that the films "proto-kitchen-sink drama goes all the way where Brief Encounter loitered hesitantly....and unlike David Lean's film, this one shows people saying the relevant things out loud. An unmissable rerelease."[15] While Melanie Williams for the BFI Screenonline noted "an important reminder that postwar British realism did not begin with the New Wave, and that the 1950s were not devoid of socially engaged cinema, as is sometimes suggested. Indeed, in the field of gender politics, one could argue that this film is considerably more progressive than the New Wave that superseded it, in its focus on the travails of a middle-aged housewife rather than those of a virile young man."[16]

Play

Willis later adapted the script into a stage play that was very successful.[17]

References
  1. Harper, Sue; Porter, Vincent (29 July 2003). "British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of Deference". Oxford University Press – via Google Books.
  2. "Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957) - J. Lee Thompson | Cast and Crew | AllMovie" – via www.allmovie.com.
  3. Higson, Andrew (ed.); Ashby, Justine (ed.); Porter, Vincent (2000). British Cinema: Past and Present: "Outsiders in England: the films of the Associated British Picture Corporation, 1949-1958". Routledge. p. 162. ISBN 9780415220620.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  4. "Berlinale 1957: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 31 December 2009.
  5. "Woman In A Dressing Gown". www.goldenglobes.com.
  6. "Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957)". BFI.
  7. "'Woman in a Dressing Gown'". The Australian Women's Weekly. 25, ([?]). Australia, Australia. 23 April 1958. p. 68. Retrieved 20 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  8. "Woman in a Dressing Gown (1956)". BFI.
  9. "CTVA UK - "ITV Television Playhouse" (ITV) Season 1 (1955-56)". ctva.biz.
  10. Thumim, Janet. "The popular cash and culture in the postwar British cinema industry". Screen. Vol. 32 no. 3. p. 259.
  11. J. LEE THOMPSON DISCUSSES CAREER: 'GUNS OF NAVARONE' DIRECTOR TOOK DEVIOUS PATH TO FILMS By MURRAY SCHUMACH Special to The New York Times25 July 1961: 18.
  12. Review of film at Variety
  13. Screen: British Import: 'Woman in a Dressing Gown' at Victoria By BOSLEY GROWTHER. New York Times 13 Sep 1957: 15.
  14. Godard, Jean-Luc. Godard on Godard. p. 85-86.
  15. "Woman in a Dressing Gown – review". the Guardian. 26 July 2012.
  16. "BFI Screenonline: Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957)". www.screenonline.org.uk.
  17. "Production of Woman in a Dressing Gown | Theatricalia". theatricalia.com.

Further reading
  • Nield, Anthony (2012). "'Woman in a Dressing Gown' Review". The Digital Fix. Recent review on the occasion of the 2012 DVD release of a restored version of the film.
  • Williams, Melanie, 'Remembering the poor soul walking in the rain: Audience Responses to a Thwarted Makeover in Woman in a Dressing Gown' in Journal of British Cinema and Television, 10 (2013), pp. 709–726.
  • Williams, Melanie, 'Dawn of the Kitchen Sink', Sight and Sound, August 2012, p. 22.
  • Williams, Melanie, 'Twilight women of 1950s British cinema' in : The British Cinema Book. British Film Institute, 2009.
  • Williams, Melanie, ‘Housewives’ choice’: Woman in a Dressing Gown' in British Cinema of the Fifties. MUP, 2003.
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