This Was a Woman

Soooo similar to queen bee, or harriet craig! Sylvia, a very controlling wife and mother, can't help herself, and is determined to have everything happen just the way she pictures it. Joan crawford must have been busy when they filmed this! But of course, this is from a british production company, excelsior films. When sylvia's daughter announces that she's getting married, sylvia tries to interfere and talk her out of it. She doesn't seem to approve of the new son in law. Very loud, dramatic, piano music always playing. Sometimes it's quite intrusive. Sylvia's zest to personally move the pieces around the chess board angers the rest of her family. And she's driving everyone apart. Except for the maid; she seems to be encouraging even the maid to come between her daughter's marriage. Can this all be worked out? Will anyone stand up to mom and tell her to butt out? It's entertaining. Based on the play by joan morgan. She had started as a very young actress, and worked with her director dad sydney morgan many times. It doesn't quite have the crawford edge, but it's good! Film directed by tim whelan. Didn't win any oscars, but he should have! He sure worked with some big stars.... spencer tracy, jimmy stewart, harold lloyd, conrad veidt.

I read recently that Sonia Dresdel made a great ' Hedda Gabler ' on stage, and I can believe it but sadly her films fell far short of that achievement. She fell into the trashy cinematic trap that a lot of 1940's melodrama's fell into; the fundamentally evil woman. In this example she is a woman seeking power and perhaps a better sexual life than she has been having. She reads ' Lady Chatterley's Lover ' and of course in the 1940's this was a forbidden book that only the depraved read and brought over from France. Absurdly she gives it to her female ' servant ' so as to lure her son in law away from his wife. Tellingly her Doctor son considers male sexuality to be ' aggressive ' and inferred in this that it was the natural order of things. Certainly if you want to see a portrait of a repressive and class obsessed UK during this period of cinema then this film is a film to see. Slowly and painfully in society we have hopefully evolved a little from this. Inevitably she kills her husband's dog and on a destructive bent seeks to destroy those around her. Dresdel seemed to enjoy the role as she also played it on stage, and no doubt this was what the public of the time wanted from her. I give this a 4 as the acting and direction is good but the ending was sickening and no doubt again pleasing to the public. Of sociological interest only and for those who still believe we are ' born ' evil.

Sonia Dresdel always made a striking appearance. She did not make many films, but she is the dominating character in every one of them. Here she is a mother who is smitten by a power complex, she acquires a passion for power, and she feels her marriage is stifling her, so she looks for a way to escape the trap she feels she is caught in. She has two children, a son and a daughter, and the daughter is going to be married, while the mother instinctively feels her daughter must be spared that marriage, and when the marriage is a fact she starts intriguing to ruin it. Her son becomes a doctor, and gradually he sees her through. The intrigue develops into a tragedy, and finally the mother is forced to give up her struggle for absolute domination. Her taste for clothes is stunning in all of her films, and I will never hesitate to find a new one of hers.

1945's "Leave Her to Heaven" is a classic film about an evil and mentally disturbed woman who destroys people. It's a great film. "This Was a Woman" is a similar sort of movie, though not nearly the same quality....mostly because it lacked the subtlety of the Hollywood movie.

The story is set in the home of a well to do English family, the Russells. The mother, Sylvia, is vicious and it's strange that it takes everyone so long to realize this. It's odd, even after putting the family dog to sleep for no particular reason, folks don't seem to think she's a bit off! And why did she do this? Her daughter was getting married and Sylvia didn't approve...so she took the dog to the vet to put it down! Soon after, she does everything she can to ruin the marriage...though you're never really sure why. Later, for kicks, she poisons her husband...something clearly telegraphed in the film when she's caught reading up on that sort of thing.

As I already mentioned, Sylvia isn't exactly subtle and that's a problem with the story. Clearly, she's an awful person but oddly no one in the family seems to notice...until it's too late. Had the movie been more subtle and had Sylvia's actions been more covert, it would have improved it tremendously. Now I am not saying it's a bad film...but with a few minor changes, it could have been marvelous. Instead, it just had me wish I'd re-watched "Leave Her to Heaven".

Sylvia Russel is akin to Harriet Craig ,one of Joan Crawford's triumphs (1950) ; and Sonia Dresdel's impressive performance compares favorably with her American colleague's.

Sylvia is even more terrifying than Harriet: if eyes could kill ,hers certainly would."Mother's always watching us, her eyes are X rays ". She's a monster , a mentally-ill person , a frustrated woman who hates mediocrity (represented by her meek husband's world which consists of his dog and his roses),who wants power and uses the others as puppets .

She's got everything to live a comfortable bourgeois life: her son and her son-in-law are both doctors .But a routine life does not satisfy her ,the coming of handsome Austin makes her even more destructive .

But it had begun before: a woman asking the vet to put a good old dog to sleep? A mother who warns her daughter against her husband? Who urges her maid to seduce her son-in-law by making her read "lady Chatterley's lover",a book forbidden in the UK till 1960 (an under-the- counter French edition : the novel was first tranferred to the screen by Yves Allégret in 1955 in this country ,but in a chaste way)?

Sylvia gets her kicks by destroying her family's life ; you should see her sweetly smile when she sees her "power" on the others .

This is first-rate film noir ; Sonia Dresdel's piercing eyes (when she watches her sick husband , they will give you the jitters)will haunt you after the viewing .Try to forget them!