Twenty-Four Hours in a Woman's Life (1961) (TV)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Silvio Narizzano

Writers:

John Mortimer (teleplay)
Stefan Zweig (novel)

Release Date:

13 April 1961 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

Helen Lester is in love with a man she has known just 24 hours, a playboy who spent time in jail for passing bad checks...

Plot Keywords:

Love | Grandmother | Bad Guy | Death | Vacation

Awards:

Nominated for Primetime Emmy.

Cast

Ingrid Bergman	...	Clare Lester
Rip Torn	...	Paul
Helena de Crespo	...	Helen Lester
Jerry Orbach	...	Cristof
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Lili Darvas	...	Louise
John Williams	...	Stevens

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Certification:

Finland:K-12

Filming Locations:

Wood Green, London, England, UK

Company:

Associated Television (ATV)

Movie Connections:

Remake of 24 horas en la vida de una mujer (1944)

Much Here To Enjoy

A 1961 black and white film made for television and poorly and unfairly received, this work is based upon a novella by Stefan Zweig, and provides an interesting story, told in spare and elegant fashion and, typically for the Austrian writer: in flashback, of a middle-aged woman who is persuaded by her family to travel through Europe as a means of overcoming longstanding grief at the death of her husband, to whom she was married for 17 years. While in Monte Carlo, the woman (Ingrid Bergman) meets with a family friend, played tastefully by John Williams, who escorts her to a casino where her path crosses that of a young gambler (Rip Torn), a depressive with the customary problem of wagerers, that of having lost everything, and she and the young man become entangled in a brief relationship that will mark the woman for the remainder of her life. The scenario, by novelist John Mortimer, is a faithful transcription of the original, with a challenging part for Bergman, and the only real weakness of the production is a tendency of Method-trained Torn to attack and hurry his lines; the score by John Kleinsinger is appropriately romantic and the ending, with the woman now old and recalling the events of the narrative, is strikingly subtle.