A House Is Not a Home

This is a very workmanlike adaptation of Polly Adler's memoirs as a madam , though I can't say how accurate it is since I haven't read the book. But what is in the film is very well narrated, if somewhat episodically, throughout.

Actually, I'm a fan of the Clarence Greene-Russell Rouse cycle of films. With all the flack Rouse is getting in the reviews for The Oscar, let's not forget the team won an Oscar for "Pillow Talk" (1959), which actually beat out Ernest Lehman's screenplay for "North by Northwest."

A major flaw in the film is the characters seem too old for their parts, especially Winters, who hardly looks like an ingenue in the opening scenes. Robert Taylor also looks much too old for the part.

Especially laudable is the downbeat ending, even if it's based on a true life story. What is puzzling is that the Bacharach-David title song was not even nominated for an Oscar, though in my view it should have won the Oscar, especially in the great vocal given it by Brook Benton in the film.

It's rather curious why the song was not even nominated. One possibility is the song had to be used in the film itself to be nominated. And that may have been a misstep by the producers. It would have been very easy to have the singer in the club sing that song rather than "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby."

Also interesting is the distant variations of the song throughout the film, which really was quite original. The song is barely hinted at throughout, never actually completing the melody before the arrangement goes somewhere else, quite inventive scoring.

I should also mention, regarding references to "The Oscar" in the reviews, that Rouse also directed one of the best adult westerns of the 1950s, "The Fastest Gun Alive."