The Woman in Question (1950)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Anthony Asquith

Writer:

John Cresswell (original story and screenplay)

Release Date:

18 February 1952 (USA)

Genre:

Mystery

Plot:

A woman is murdered, but she is seen in different ways by different people. |

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman

Cast

Jean Kent	...	Agnes / Madame Astra / Parrot (voice)
Dirk Bogarde	...	R.W. (Bob) Baker
John McCallum	...	Michael Murray
Susan Shaw	...	Catherine Taylor
Hermione Baddeley	...	Mrs. Finch
Charles Victor	...	Albert Pollard
Duncan Macrae	...	Supt. Lodge
Lana Morris	...	Lana Clark
Joe Linnane	...	Inspector Butler
Vida Hope	...	Shirley Jones

Also Known As:

Five Angles on Murder (USA)

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) | Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #14748) | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

J. Arthur Rank Organisation

Trivia:

Inside joke: When the police inspectors are searching the flat at the beginning, they come across some photographs of the dead woman's boyfriends. One comments to the other that they might recognise some of these men from their own rogues' gallery. He pauses, examines one and says knowingly, "John Mills!" Obviously a tongue-in-cheek reference to a certain fellow actor!

An English Rashomon, or a drag routine

Made the same year - 1950 - as Rashomon which is acclaimed for retelling the same story several ways, The Woman in Question does the very same, allowing Jean Kent to portray five rather different versions of Astra, the fortune teller. The women in the film are much better drawn than the men, despite both the director and writer being themselves men, and despite the narrative framework of the all-male police team. Some would attribute this to Asquith's gay perspective. The combined portrait of Astra is not very flattering, especially her refusal to visit her dying husband, and in her using Pollard, the pet-shop keeper, to work for her for free, but then refusing his polite advances, she is walking a dangerous line. The underlying sadness of her person comes through, but she is not as sad as Pollard.

The outstanding secondary character is Mrs Finch, the nosey neighbour from next door who never stops talking. Hermione Baddeley, in the part, practically steals the first part of the film to the extent that the rest almost seems like an anticlimax. Her characterization, her way of speech, the hairnet and the pinafore, owe a lot to the English tradition of comical working-class characters that goes back to renaissance theatre, was developed in the Music Hall, and is a precursor of the Monty-Python housewives chatting over the back fence. That is, it is very easy to see her as done by Dan Leno or Al Reid. A change of emphasis and we have a drag routine.