The first feature film written by Ted Willis was Good-Time Girl in 1947 and within the decade he was chronicling the other side of the coin and the conclusion would seem to be that Sinner or Saint it's not much fun being a girl. By 1957 the 'kitchen sink' school of drama was firmly established on both stage and screen courtesy of plays like Look Back In Anger, which John Osborne unleashed in 1956 and films not a million miles away from Good-Time Girl and The Blue Lamp, also the work of Willis. Anthony Quayle and Sylvia Syms had been involved in Ice Cold In Alex yet there's an odd lack of chemistry between their semi-adulterous (she isn't married, he is) lovers as indeed there is between Quayle, a Shakespearean actor never fully at ease in modern dress, and Yvonne Mitchell, who walks away the the film, slipping easily around a wooden Andrew Ray as the son of herself and Quayle. It was probably seen as a taut, gripping drama in its day but that day wasn't yesterday or even the day before and time could have been kinder, nevertheless it will reward a look.
Review of Woman in a Dressing Gown
