Rent Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957)

i really enjoyed this film - Woman in a Dressing Gown review by pete b

terrific performance by yvonne mitchell, and watching this film has led me to seek other films in which she features. a film of the eternal triangle, with no judgment passed, just portrayal of anguish. v good. 

Domestic Drama. - Woman in a Dressing Gown review by Steve

Revised and recast from Ted Willis' ITV Playhouse production. And it does feel like a television drama of the period, with its gritty kitchen sink realism set in tiny flat on a postwar council estate. But with better production values and familiar leads. Anthony Quayle is a middle aged, white collar wage slave repelled by his wife's slovenliness.

And attracted to his young secretary's tranquil, unblemished beauty. Sylvia Syms gives an astute performance as the other woman, with the promise of her uncritical tenderness spoiled by a speck of entitlement. But it's Yvonne Mitchell's film and she creates one of the outstanding performances in a British film as the vulgar, scatterbrained, traumatised wife.

There is a raw vulnerability to her disintegration which is harrowing to watch. Like we are seeing her emotional skin peel away, leaving her abandoned, humiliated and unable to understand why. Mitchell doesn't give anything as gaudy as a star performance. She's too painfully, heartbreakingly real.

The direction is extremely unsubtle. Willis' script still stands up despite covering attitudes that have greatly changed. Like the British new wave films this predates, it revels in its ordinariness. There's a familiar story but it delivers a huge emotional impact; the kind of domestic social realism that would one day be explored by Mike Leigh.