Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

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...

Woman in a Dressing Gown is directed by J. Lee Thompson and written by Ted Willis. It stars Yvonne Mitchell, Anthony Quayle and Sylvia Syms, music is by Louis Levy and cinematography by Gilbert Taylor.It's something of an inauspicious title, a title hardly conducive to making this piece of film leap out at you, to shout that it's essential British cinema. How wonderful to find that not only is it a title completely befitting the material being played out, but that it is actually essential British cinema.It's little known and very under seen, in fact myself was only introduced to it by a Canadian friend! The story centers on a London family of three, husband is away earning the corn at the office, teenage son is just starting out in life after school, and mother? She's on housewife auto-pilot, but disorganised with it. Her auto- pilot world is shaken to the core when it is revealed that husband is having an affair with his personal secretary, a smart and beautiful younger sort who is demanding that husband divorces wifey or it's all off...It sounds very kitchen sink, but actually it's not, it's a very smartly written picture giving credence to mental illness, to the shattering blows of infidelity, of a crumbling family dynamic, a family that in truth is homespun. Ordinary? Yes, but safe as the red brick built poky flat they dwell in. We are not asked to take sides here, to chastise or judge, Thompson and his superb cast merely ask us to delve into their world, to understand it, the psychological humdrum of 50s Britain, the starkness of marriage does mean growing old together, but that nobody ever said it was going to be easy.Looking at it now it can be viewed as a very important film in the trajectory of British cinema, Mitchell's character is the fulcrum, making the film a must see as regards the evolution of how women have been represented in Brit cinema through the years. Thompson, better known for tough macho fuelled movies on his CV, does a wonderful job in letting us feel the anguish and emotional turbulence. Hazy camera shots couple up with stark framing of the objects in the cramped flat, all marrying up to the fractured nature of Amy & Jim's marriage. There's even humour to be found, very much so, with Louis Levy's musical cue accompaniments deftly shifting from seething passions to Ealing like comedy as the home life of Amy is scattergun in execution. Kitchen sink, social realist, proto realist and etc? No! This has no pigeon hole to be placed in, it's just terrific film making, from the writing, the performances, the direction and its worth to anyone interested in classic British cinema, this demands to be sought out. And for the record, the last 20 minutes of film will move and invigorate the coldest of hearts. 9/10

It's a matter of deep regret that Woman In A Dressing Gown remains unreleased on DVD and is rarely, if ever, screened on television. As a previous commenter noted, it's the first of the kitchen sink drama's which became so fashionable in the 1960's, and it's the best.The story is unremarkable; clerk Anthony Quayle is having an affair with his firm's secretary, Sylvia Sims. His wife, Yvonne Mitchell, devoted, but suffering from a clinical depression which leads her to be alternatively hysterical and morose, knows nothing, believing her husband to be equally devoted, so when Quayle breaks the news that he plans to divorce her, she goes to pieces. This unpromising situation is electrified by several elements; Yvonne Mitchell's searing performance, a spare script, and some very claustrophobic settings. Mitchell owns this film; her character is so helpless, so self-effacing, that Quayleand Sims offer her the best kind of support - they let her do her own thing. Long sequences find Mitchell alone - at the cooker, at the kitchen table, at the window - and each of these scenes is a masterpiece of momentum worthy of any noir. But isn't kitchen sink drama the most casual noir and therefore the most terrifying? Really one would have to see Mitchell in action - her habitual burning of family breakfasts, her abortive trip uptown to dolly up and win back her man, most of all her only companion - a faded dressing gown which acts as comfort blanket to the woman. She is stunning and deservedly won many plaudits for her performance.Credit must also go to Anthony Quayle who underplays his natural strengths as an actor. His perplexity at finding himself an object of desire is played out beautifully and logically to the conclusion. Sylvia Sims also impresses as the other woman, a slip of a thing whose scenes are fragile but safe because we know she is in no danger from herself.The script is taken from a television play by Ted Willis which was broadcast in the early days of ITV. I have no idea whether it still exists, probably not, given British television's habit of treating archives as ephemera - there is nothing ephemeral about Woman In A Dressing Gown. It is blindingly and viscerally memorable. Neither do I have any idea who currently owns the rights to this film but I must say they ought to be ashamed of themselves - it needs to be restored and issued on DVD before it's completely forgotten.All in all, a lovely and unsung classic for connoisseurs of everything vital.

In the late sixties (Pre-VCR) we had three UHF stations in our area, and they all signed off at 12 midnight. Unfortunately I worked second shift at a local factory and was just getting out at that time. One of our stations, bowing to public pressure, agreed to remain on after midnight and show movies. "Great...Right? "No, Not so great!!! They purchased four films, one of which was "Woman In A Dressing Gown", and showed them over and over again. "My God, It was just like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" I still have the dialogue running through my head even today. (He covers everything I make in sauce...Dollops of sauce) The remaining films were(in order of boredom):The Burning Hills, Teenagers From Outer Space,and Dangerous Youth