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

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. Though the man has promised to change, most of her straitlaced ... See full summary »

Director:

Silvio Narizzano

Writers:

John Mortimer (teleplay), Stefan Zweig (novel)

Stars:

Ingrid Bergman, Rip Torn, Helena de Crespo

Nominated for 2 Primetime Emmys.

Cast

Credited 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

Storyline

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. Though the man has promised to change, most of her straitlaced relatives are up in arms. But Clare Lester, Helen's grandmother, says the girl is free to join the man she loves. On one condition, that she listen to the story of a day in Clare's own life and of a man she tried to change.

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Plot Keywords:

love | grandmother | foreign language adaptation | older woman younger man relationship | male female relationship | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Details

Country:

USA UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 March 1961 (USA)

Also Known As:

24 horas en la vida de una mujer

Filming Locations:

Wood Green, London, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Associated Television (ATV), CBS Television Network

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Featured in Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words (2015)

User Reviews

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.