They Were Sisters

This is a truly shocking film, and it is certainly not a weepie. Usually Gainsborough films have left me cold, indulging mostly in a fake delirium of both plots and characters. There are exceptions and this is one of them. It shows in tragic detail the details of false marriages, and the pain that children feel watching helplessly and not being able to escape or react. The plot is not melodramatic, and the suffering, intensely portayed by the three sisters of the title, and how only one of the three is happy with her husband rings true. To give away the plot is unfair, because the unravelling of the three marriages is so meticulously done. Dulcie Gray is the most tragic of the three and acts very well, and so does Phyllis Calvert but the third sister played by Anne Crawford ( who died far too young ) gives an extraordinary performance. Her coldness towards her husband almost equals the cold male brutality James Mason portrays as a real emotional killer. I also think in watching this film that viewers of our era should not find the mannerisms of the first half of the 20th C. to be out of date or ' funny ' in any way. Each period has its social mannerisms and if time allows at the end of this century people may look back and laugh. I do not find the film dated, and the subject matter of marital abuse and cruelty is as important today as then. Watch the scene where a father threatens to take away a loved dog from his child, by either giving it to a woman who does not want it or have it ' put down '. The devastation on the child's face is terrible to watch, and the director Arthur Crabtree excels in showing human tyranny and human suffering without sentimentality. Only the final scene nearly ruins what went before, but I guess after WW2 in 1945 an audience could only take so much. I would give it a 10 if that scene had not ( perhaps ) been tagged on.

Possibly the most compelling, if not nauseating depiction of non-physical domestic abuse that I've seen. Also, it seems about as clear as it could be at the time the film was made that the James Mason character is having a sexual relationship with his daughter, and the dynamic in their relationship is sometimes a bit too real to watch. James Mason seemed to get typecast in this sort of role for a while, probably because he's so good at it.

"They Were Sisters", a lush, Black and White studio film, has the cream of post-war British acting talent (Phyllis Calvert, James Mason, Anne Crawford.) You will need to get over the hurdle of tolerating that late 1940s bright, British way of talking, only nowadays to be heard in reduced form from the Queen. Also, accept and get used to the slightly wooden "Peter and Jane" style child actors - then you'll see a great weepy melodrama.

James Mason is deliciously malevolent and controlling of his drippy, sweet, doormat of a wife, the fragile Dulcie Gray. This sister's marriage troubles are timeless - what we would nowadays see as coercive control, or "gaslighting". Her sister Vera, played by that specialist of a high-maintenance woman, Anne Crawford, has a marriage more particular to the upper middle-class of the middle years of the century: a spoilt trophy wife, like a character from Noel Coward who's strayed into a melodrama, but still highly entertaining for it. The perfect, third sister Lucy has the perfect marriage, except she cannot have children, and so dotes on her sisters' neglected children. We're not great ones for family dramas like this nowadays, being rather individualistic and focussed on our ability to choose whether we marry and whether children quite fit our modern, choice-filled lives, so it is a refreshing pleasure to see this sisters' family drama, let's say from a "family" era.

Interestingly the wicked James Mason character's seventeen year old daughter is well played by Pamela Kellino, his future wife and already thirty in this picture - one of those actresses like Alicia Silverstone who seem able to play teenagers into their thirties. James Mason seems to have shown up as his smooth self in so many anonymous films that I'm inclined to avoid him; that's a bit absurd, because he's in so many good ones, in particular this one: see what he's made of here.

Give this great film a chance: if you can accept the accents and jauntiness and stop noticing them, it's a great melodrama, and the softer amongst you might finish up blubbing - maybe not quite "Wonderful Life" territory, but could be tear jerking.

Loved this film. James Mason gorgeously dastardly and children roles not as superficial as many other films. Very confused about IMDB and Wickipedia entries though. Saw this today and Lucy character had lost a child. Hence discussing removing a picture of their dead daughter before notice Judith came to stay for fear of upsetting her that children sometimes die. Yet IMDB and Wickipedia both say she was childless, have they watched the film!

Phyllis Calvert is lovely and sympathetic and, aside from the children and the dog, is the only one to really cheer for. Although most female viewers will be lured in by James Mason's disturbingly alluring cruelty, they will probably find it quite ugly by the end. Being set in the more modern day, with Mason in a suit and driving a car, instead of a period costume and a horse, makes this story all the more unpleasant. Worst of all is the casting of Mason's real-life wife Pamela as his eldest daughter (!) Unless this was a rare glimpse of him breaking character with the camera rolling, his physical affection with her in their many shared scenes surely indicated incest. Eww! Her performance doesn't give that impression, but then she wasn't much of an actress. Allegedly her character is mature, yet she calls him "Daddy" throughout. His poor on- screen wife and children suffer his endless verbal and emotional abuse. He even threatens the poor dog. The most entertaining scene for me (as an American) was when the young son is playing with a new gun, and Cruel Papa Mason says he MAY have to take that away from him. Unlike the villain you loved to hate in The Man in Grey and The Wicked Lady, here his villain is more like alcoholic pervert uncle-by-marriage who manages to ruin every family gathering. You'll applaud Phyllis Calvert's kind- hearted character but won't find any redeeming value in Mason's villain.