Dedications: My four late friends Rory, Stan, Bryan, Jeff - shine on you crazy diamonds, they would have blogged too. Then theres Garry from Brisbane, Franco in Milan, Mike now in S.F. / my '60s-'80s gang: Ned & Joseph in Ireland; in England: Frank, Des, Guy, Clive, Joe & Joe, Ian, Ivan, Nick, David, Les, Stewart, the 3 Michaels / Catriona, Sally, Monica, Jean, Ella, Anne, Candie / and now: Daryl in N.Y., Jerry, John, Colin, Martin and Donal.

Thursday 26 July 2012

Summer re-runs: Woman in a dressing gown

My pal Stan liked this one. I mentioned it last week when writing about BITTER HARVEST (below) as it too was written by Ted Willis, that well-known '50s writer of TV dramas, and now here it is back in selected cinemas. Well directed by J.Lee Thompson in 1957 it is a solid drama about an untidy woman, forever in that dressing gown, letting the housework getting on top of her, annoying her rising executive husband Anthony Quayle, whose modern go-getting secretary, that bitchy Sylvia Syms, wants him for herself ..... as it focuses on that emerging rising class of middle-management in those new office blocks. Can poor Yvonne Mitchell hang on to her man and get over her depression and clean up her house? Great cast of course and that downbeat '50s milieu anticipates the Kitchen Sink era to follow ... Yvonne Mitchell (who was also a writer) was wonderful in these roles (YIELD TO THE NIGHT, THE DIVIDED HEART, TIGER BAY, CONSPIRACY OF HEARTS, SAPPHIRE and her marvellous Constance opposite Peter Finch in the 1960 TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE (Finch, Mitchell labels) and a great '73 BBC series of Colette's CHERI. She died in 1979 (aged 63) after playing Glenda Jackson's maid in THE INCREDIBLE SARAH - I must dig that one out, it would be a hilarious summer treat !

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