Reflections on ... The Unholy Wife (1957)

 

/ Illustration by Olivier Coulon /

Recently watched: The Unholy Wife (1957). Tagline: “Half-angel. Half-devil. She made him half-a-man!” 

This pedestrian but enjoyably sordid film noir is unique for being made in scorching colour. Even in the faded print circulating on YouTube, British sex bomb leading lady Diana Dors’ gleaming platinum hair and skin-tight costumes in royal blue, fuchsia and ice pink are eye-popping. (Director John Farrow was no hack: he made some of Robert Mitchum’s greatest films (Where Danger Lives (1950), His Kind of Woman (1951). He clearly had an “off day” here). 

The Unholy Wife offers a portrait of a dysfunctional marriage in the verdant sun-dappled vineyards of Napa Valley. Or as the publicity blurb promises “This is the wine cellar of the most respectable house in the Valley. This is where she met them, made love to them, laughed with them at her husband … at the man who gave her a name, a home and a heritage – the man she wanted to destroy!” The action unfolds in flashback, with present-day Phyllis (whose name evokes the Barbara Stanwyck character Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity (1944)) in jail, recounting the events that led to her imprisonment. (In these scenes, jailbird Dors is seen scrubbed of make-up and sporting brown hair, which can’t help but recall her earlier British film Yield to the Night (1956)). In a role originally intended for Shelley Winters, Dors is a seething, manipulative married woman scheming with her lantern-jawed, broad-shouldered lover San (hunky Tom Tryon) to murder her cuckolded husband, vineyard owner Paul (played by Rod Steiger – in a role originally intended for Ernest Borgnine - in the then-fashionable mumbling Actor’s Studio tradition). Wringing her hands in the background is mother-in-law Emma, played by Beulah Bondi (a part intended for Ethel Barrymore). 

/ Tom Tryon and Diana Dors in The Unholy Wife /

Watch for one truly glorious sequence of Phyllis and her pal Gwen (hard-boiled, nicotine-saturated noir icon Marie Windsor) toiling as “hostesses” at a low-down gin joint. While the blowzy resident nightclub singer (Maxine Gates) wails “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road”), Phyllis – sheathed in sensational silver lamé - kvetches, “Not much action around here tonight.” Windsor’s appearance is fleeting and makes you wish The Unholy Wife was mainly 90-minutes of just her and Dors hanging out. The commercial and critical failure of The Unholy Wife ultimately cut short Dors’ brief and unhappy sojourn in Hollywood, and she returned to the United Kingdom. (For gossip-hungry sensationalism freaks, Dors and Steiger - both married to other people - had a fling during production).

/ Frustratingly, I couldn't source a good colour image of Marie Windsor and Diana Dors online in this nightclub sequence. (Windsor's dress is bright red). /

Watch The Unholy Wife here.

Reflections on ... The Weak and the Wicked (1954)

 

/ Pictured: Diana Dors and Glynis Johns in The Weak and the Wicked (1954) /

Recently watched: The Weak and the Wicked (1954) (re-titled Young and Willing for the North American market). Tagline: “Frank, raw-truth exposé of women’s prisons! The terrors … abuses … scandals!” 

Who doesn’t love a gritty women-in-prison exploitation movie? Give me a Caged (1950), Women’s Prison (1955), Betrayed Women (1955), Girls in Prison (1956), Women Without Men (1956) or Caged Heat (1974) and I am entranced! (The whole genre was brilliantly parodied by SCTV in 1977 in the essential sketch “Broads Behind Bars”). 

Compared to these lurid, hard-boiled American exemplars, the British variation The Weak and the Wicked undeniably feels buttoned-up, drab, downbeat and yes, tame, by comparison but it’s not without its merits. Glynis Johns stars as Jean Raymond, a posh upper-class woman (she wears prim little white gloves!) with a gambling addiction sentenced to prison on a trumped-up fraud charge. We watch as Jean and the other new arrivals file-in to be “processed” by the stern prison matrons: weighed, bathed (“strip!”), checked for lice and issued their frumpy uniforms. Once installed, Jean promptly befriends brassy peroxide blonde Betty Brown (the perennially sensational Diana Dors. Betty’s first words to Jean: “gizza fag!”). With each new female inmate Jean encounters, we get a flashback outlining her backstory (some are funny, some are tragic). British cinema aficionados should watch for Rachel Roberts, Sybil Thorndike, Irene Handl and Sid James in small roles. (I think it was contractually obligated for either James or Herbert Lom to appear in every single British film of the period). Director J Lee Thompson would reunite with Dors for yet another, better-known women-in-prison movie, Yield to the Night (inspired by the Ruth Ellis case) in 1956.

The Next Lobotomy Room Film Club: Passport to Shame (1958) on 28 July 2022

This month the Lobotomy Room film club (our motto: Bad Movies for Bad People) presents for your delectation tense, irresistibly trashy black-and-white British b-movie Passport to Shame (1958)! See the film described by Radio Times as “a cheap, tawdry and utterly fascinating piece of vintage sexploitation” that aims to expose the shame of London’s prostitution rings! As a bonus: Passport co-stars 26-year-old Diana Dors - British cinema’s reigning bad girl - at her pouting sex goddess zenith!  Thursday 28 July 2022 downstairs at the fabulous Fontaine’s bar in Dalston! (Note: the film club is normally third Thursday of every month - but this month it got bumped to the following Thursday! Don't get it twisted!). 

Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies is the free monthly film club devoted to the cult, the kitsch and the queer! Third Thursday night of every month downstairs at Fontaine’s bar (Dalston's most unique nite spot)! Two drink minimum. Inquire about the special offer £5 cocktail menu! Numbers are limited, so reserving in advance via Fontaine’s website is essential.  Alternatively, phone 07718000546 or email bookings@fontaines.bar to avoid disappointment! (Any difficulties reserving, contact me on garusell1969@gmail.com). The film starts at 8:30 pm. Doors to the basement Bamboo Lounge open at 8:00 pm. To ensure everyone is seated and cocktails are ordered in time, please arrive by 8:15 pm at the latest.

Facebook event page. 

/ Diana Dors in Passport to Shame (1958) /

/ Passport to Shame was released in North American markets as Room 43 / 

Read more here. 

Reflections on ... Passport to Shame (1958)

Recently watched: Passport to Shame (1958), a tense, irresistibly trashy black-and-white British b-movie that aims to expose the scourge of prostitution rings in London. Tagline: “EXPOSED! The Shame of London Vice!” Alternate American title: Room 43. I was already enticed just by the RadioTimes description (“a cheap, tawdry and utterly fascinating piece of vintage sexploitation”) – and it didn’t disappoint!

You know Passport is going to be good when it commences with an unintentionally hilarious “what you’re about to see” public service announcement, with lawman Fabian of the Yard earnestly addressing the camera to warn us about this “blight” on society. (He employs the now rarely-heard word “seamy” – let’s bring that back!). The putative lead actress is Odile Versois as protagonist Malou, the naïve French girl unwittingly lured into white slavery. But Malou is a wan and tiresome one-dimensional victim (and saddled with a terrible ponytail wiglet).

Instead, Passport is comprehensively stolen by 26-year old Diana Dors - British cinema’s reigning bad girl - at her pouting sex goddess zenith in a secondary role as fellow prostitute Vicki. Dors is given a fabulous introduction on a busy street at night. The camera lovingly pans up from her stiletto heels, to her skin-tight white pencil skirt before settling on her platinum blonde mane. A male passerby grabs Vicki by the elbow to stop her from stepping off the curb into a puddle. “You almost wound up in the gutter!” he exclaims, and Dors gives him a knowing smirk before swiveling away. (An interesting visual shorthand: virtuous Malou typically wears full skirts with crinolines, while Dors and the other "working girls" hobble around in painted-on pencil skirts).

 

I’d assumed the action would occur in the vicinity of Soho, but in fact Passport’s locale is mainly situated around Bayswater. Anyway, Passport is swathed in moody film noir-style lighting and boasts some exceptional performances. Craggy-faced tough guy Eddie Considine is the Canadian cabdriver with a heart of gold determined to save Malou’s virtue. Brenda de Banzie as Aggie the brothel madam suggests a malevolent, fro frou and British-accented version of Ethel Mertz from I Love Lucy, and Herbert Lom exudes menace as sleazeball pimp Nick. (Boy, does he not appreciate being reminded of his humble origins in the East End!). Passport reaches a crazed climax when – in a moment worthy of Reefer Madness – an unsuspecting Malou smokes marijuana (she assumes it’s a regular cigarette) and proceeds to have a berserk German Expressionist nightmare.

/ Below: bonus cheesecake shot of Dors. In the film itself, we only get a fleeting glimpse of Vicki wearing this sexy lingerie but Passport to Shame's publicity material seemed to focus on it! /