La mujer rendida

Impressive and bold B movie with a fantastic performance from a glowing, Lola Albright. A name that meant nothing to me and although I see she is still working today, her medium has mainly been TV, but why? Maybe this film was just a bit too strong for the time and she never got the attention she should have from it. The story of a young guy with an older woman, nothing new but here dealt with particularly well with no moralising. Much is clearly low budget stuff with some pretty poor 'teenage' scenes but all the scenes involving the gradual seduction and those of the later striptease are shot with astonishing attention to detail and sizzle before you. From her very first advances with the naked foot upon his hand to the startling, aforementioned, strip, these are some of the most sensually shot scenes I have seen in film. Ending is uncompromising too, which comes as a relief.

I was not yet alive when A COLD WIND IN AUGUST made its initial theatrical go-round, but I suspect that it generated a magnitude of criticism during those less permissive times(in response to its ostensibly unprincipled premise and erotically-charged underpinnings). It's a rather prurient melodrama, but far too gracefully formulated to come off sleazy or sexually exploitive in its portraiture of a brassy mid-life burlesque queen who finds herself in a fiery romantic entanglement with a giddy seventeen year-old boy.

Considering that this film is a product of a far less lenient America, it smolders with audacious sexual intimations which surely raised more than a few eyebrows in '61. Still, it generally approaches its subject matter with sincerity and sensitivity...this is a film of uncommon veracity for its time, and could be mentioned in the same breath as BABY-DOLL, LOLITA, and THE NAKED KISS, films which their era's more priggish types may have found to be of questionable social graces. The makers of these and similarly polemical films should be admired for their fortitude in the face of stifling puritan objection.

Commanding performances are provided by two criminally under-appreciated talents, Albright and Marlowe. They have a unique and entirely believable chemistry on screen which is keynote to the film's success. Joe DeSantis shines as well in the role of Marlowe's cautious but understanding widower father.

A COLD WIND has its share of forgivable blemishes, and it may come off rather stilted, possibly even campy to some with its fifty-year vintage...regardless, it was/is a brave undertaking, professionally appointed and deserving of greater appreciation.

7.5/10

This isn't a movie loaded with big name stars, although Lola Albright and Scott Marlowe both had busy enough careers, but it has a pretty good story to get your interest, and Albright and Marlowe are both pretty good in their roles. This is an "older woman romances younger guy" story. Albright's Iris is a lonely 30-something woman who happens to work as a stripper at a burlesque club. Marlowe's Vito is the 17 year old son of her building's superintendent who enters her apartment one day to fix her air conditioner, after which sparks fly between the two.

The sparks are well portrayed. Albright was excellent and quite captivating as the sultry, sexy seductress who sets her sights on Vito. I doubt any normal 17 year old guy could have resisted her. Marlowe was marginally less convincing as Vito, but still good enough. The evolution of their relationship from what seems to be a mere fling to a full blown love affair is believable (although it seems perhaps a bit abridged) as is Vito's angst when he finds out that his new love is a stripper, and as is Iris's pain when Vito dumps her afterward. The burlesque scenes were - in the context of 1961 anyway - fairly graphic (although tame by today's standards) and the whole movie had an overtly erotic feel to it from beginning to end.

It's a bit grainy at times, and it has the feel of its era, but in subject matter it's ahead of its time and was probably shocking to many when it came out. It's a very enjoyable and interesting movie to watch.

This is Lola Albright's all- time greatest work. It is in fact, a work of B-movie brilliance...an art masterpiece if there ever was one. Lola Albright gave the best performance of her career in this movie about the seduction of a younger man. She is at all times believable and convincing...a stripper who can be loving and kind one moment, and a pleasure-seeking, self-centered older woman the next. To be honest, when she is seen on stage in a devil's costume, I thought that the rug was pulled out from beneath me. Talk about provocative, alluring, and extremely beautiful, Lola Albright is "all of the above" and then some. This movie should go down as one of the very best B movies of the 20th century...a title that it justly deserves.

Lola Albriight had a way about her. Physically, she wasn't unlike the two other most intriguing second-string sex symbols of the period, Angie Dickinson and Sheree North. But what set Albright apart from all the rest was her humor. Humor in a woman is rarely considered as seductive a quality as it is in a man, with L.A., however, it happened to be the case. And what made her (and it) so truly special was that as an actress she made the audience see that it was a defense mechanism for her character as well - a protection against her deepest, darkest emotions.

This is what made her the most smoking hot of Hollywood's post-WW II actresses. And the most criminally under-utilized. And underrated.

Rating: The Movie gets a 6

In her best role: L.A.'s contribution is a 10 for all time.

Composite: 7.5

Lola, if you're out there, I hope you're listening.