Woman In A Dressing Gown [DVD] [1957]

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Williams, Melanie, 'Twilight women of 1950s British cinema' in: The British Cinema Book. British Film Institute, 2009. Finally, on the Monday night, Jimbo tells Amy that he wants a divorce (I supsect that what finally does it for him is that Amy serves up a particularly unappetisiing forth, but events conspire against her (her hair is ruined when she is caught in the most sudden downpour in film history; when she goes in a shop it is reasonably sunny, when she comes out less than J. Lee Thompson later said the film lost money but was well received by critics. [5] Critical [ edit ]

Leslie Halliwell said: "Classic British TV play adequately filmed but now rather dated and irritating." [11] Andrew Ray) and 'the other woman' Georgie (Syliva Syms). Amy is a walking disaster area in terms of her role as a housewife; the flat is a mess, with endless clutter about the place

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Syms, who is 78 and possesses the most tremendous voice that swoops from stage-whisper to shout in seconds, has a reputation for being formidable but I wasn't quite prepared for this, in more ways than one. I want to know more about Woman in a Dressing Gown, a striking 1957 film that is deservedly being re-released. It's about a working-class housewife who runs a chaotic home, and her husband who is steeling himself to take off with his young secretary, played by an icily beautiful young Syms. The main characters are typical rather than exceptional; the situations are easily identifiable by the audience....I am just now becoming aware of this area, this Merits attention from Doctor Who fans interested in the development of a script by going deep into the story’s genesis and shifts in tone, and the infamous production difficulties which plagued it. The glimpses of Steve Gallagher’s original scripts are fascinating, as are the changes made to them by seemingly everyone from directors to producers to cast members." We Are Cult. 17 June 2019. of J Lee Thompson, so she knows her stuff. Part of her research involved finding out reactions to the film at the time, and it was interesting to see how many women then took it almost as a of it, or hardly anyway. Amy prepares bacon and eggs (I think), burnt toast, and an overfilled cup of tea, but I think Jimbo sits down for about 2 minutes (just counted actually, it's 1 minute

he is clearly a weak character, whereas Amy is shown to have hidden depths) and although the film has a happy ending of sorts it doesn't feel like that now. Wil Amy really change? It mixes the intellectual and the emotional very well...it's proper media criticism" 9/10 - The Medium Is Not Enough The Prestons are an apparently happy household made up of wife Amy, husband Jim and teenage son Brian, living in a cramped flat on a London housing estate. On a Sunday morning Amy lovingly prepares Jim's cooked breakfast but he announces he has to work. Ahead of its time in some respects, particularly in its placing of a dysfunctional woman at the centre of the drama, Woman in a Dressing Gown at least thematically foreshadows some of the emotional and social concerns of the 'kitchen sink' dramas of the early 1960s even if its stylistic qualities and performance modes bear little in common with the naturalism of such films. However, Thompson crafts a film full of visual surprises that matches Mitchell's own exploration of entrapment and depression. It's a little-known, thought-provoking gem and you have a chance to see this again in cinemas from 27 July as Studiocanal and ICO are re-releasing the film. Here's a full list of play dates.Louis Nowra is an acclaimed Australian dramatist, who has written two new plays for BBC Radio 4. He tells Kirsty how a serious head-injury, and being the son of an infamous murderess, have shaped his writing - and why he avoids arty types, preferring instead to have a beer with the labourers in his local bar. This is what happens in WIADG, as can be seen from the scene above. Extremely unappetising though the food is, Jimbo and Brian actually don't eat any Thumim, Janet. "The popular cash and culture in the postwar British cinema industry". Screen. Vol.32, no.3. p.259. The film is remarkable for its combustible atmosphere, centring around Mitchell’s performance as Amy Preston, the woman beset by the dowdiness she possesses in her husband’s eyes.

Did Syms feel they were making something quite progressive at the time? "I don't think you thought in those terms," she barks. "I just knew I loved this part, and I was like Georgie – a nice girl who kept a wonderfully tidy flat, and I was working like a bloody demon all the hours God gave. I thought you had to be a virtuous housewife. We weren't yet quite emancipated, don't forget. We hadn't got the pill for a start. It made a big difference. Did you realise I had to take my marriage certificate to Marie Stopes to get some sort of birth control?" Did her commitment to a "normal" family life – after the loss of two babies, she adopted a son, and later had a daughter, Beatie Edney, also an actor – cost her professionally? "Of course it did. You can't have both. It's a myth to say you can have both. You've got to give up something." It sounds like she regrets putting her family first but she wonders if that's really the case. "When you are old you look around and say I wish I'd done that, but the answer is you didn't because you didn't really want to." Whether you’re a fan of the show under Moffat or not, it offers an intriguing, insightful look at all aspects of the series" 7/10 - Starburst, January 2014 The opening of the film establishes the family at the centre of the narrative, the scruffy Amy (Yvonne Mitchell) in her stained dressing gown, husband Jim (Anthony Quayle) preparing to shave and son Brian (Andrew Ray) getting ready to go out. There has been no theme music to accompany the titles, only the pealing bells to indicate it is Sunday, the crying of children and a layer of light classical music booming from Amy's radio which, perhaps in an effort to deny her reality, she turns up higher throughout the film. There is no dialogue. Just Amy trying to complete a newspaper competition as she burns the toast, Jim shaving and Brian wanting his breakfast. multi-tasking. In a poignant scene where Jim struggles to tell her about Georgie, she seems oblivious to his introversion and is more concerned about a depressed neighbour's deteriorating relationship. Jim alsoIn 1964 Burt Bacharach won the Grammy Award for his song "Wives and Lovers", the lyrics of which began: "Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your make-up. Soon he will open the door. Don't think because there's a ring on your finger, you needn't try any more". actually eat anything? They have very healthy salads, but they simply push the lettuce etc around their plate at the canteen at work, and pretty much the same thing applies at home, as they There's a particularly moving scene which tips the film over into full blown tragedy as Amy crumbles emotionally in the dimly lit bathroom while, in juxtaposition, her son and his girlfriend dance to a raucous jazz record. Mitchell then uses the meeting with Syms's Georgie to finally disgorge a

Husband Jim (Anthony Quayle) swerves into the arms of pretty young colleague Georgie (Sylvia Syms) but his request for a divorce wrenches Amy into a dark reflection of what her life has become, in what remains as moving a portrayal of repressed desires as you’ll see onscreen. Williams, Melanie, ‘Housewives’ choice’: Woman in a Dressing Gown' in British Cinema of the Fifties. MUP, 2003. Carole Lesley (27 May 1935 – 28 February 1974), was a British actress who had a short but significant career as a "blonde bombshell". [1] emphasised by the filming style of director J Lee Thompson, often shooting through the visual clutter). She is like a child with ADHD, unable to focus on more than one thing at a time, and

The ultimate kitchen sink drama - in fact the phrase could have been invented for this film - Woman in a Dressing Gown (or WIADG as we in the trade a group of human beings in the grip of a recognisable situation, and their ordinary human reactions to that situation." In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan rated the film as "very good", writing: "Superior kitchen-sink soaper whose power overcomes even the casting of upper-class stars in working-class roles." [12] and 14 seconds) and he's off. Later in the film Brian does something similar, saying that he has to go somewhere or he'll be late (so why don't you get up earlier, you'll have time Harper, Sue; Porter, Vincent (29 July 2003). British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of Deference. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198159346– via Google Books.