sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** In a very reserved and non method and overacting, that were used to seeing him back in the 1950's and 1960's, role Rod Steiger steals the movie, even though he's the star in it, as the sensitive tragic as well as guilt-ridden California wine baron Paul Hochen.We already see that Paul is up the creek with his wife Phyllis, Diana Dors, in prison clothes and her bleached blond hair a ruddy brown spilling her guts out to how she tried to frame him in the murder of his best friend and fellow wine grower Gino Verdugo, Joe DeSantis. As Phyllis tells her story the movie goes into flashback as we see the events that lead up to Gino's tragic death. It seemed that Phyllis was having an affair with bronco busting rodeo cowboy San Sanders, Tom Tyron, behind her husbands back. If that wasn't bad enough Phyllis planned to murder Paul and make it look like an accident in that he was mistaken for a prowler trying to break into the Hochen Mansion. Waiting for the right moment to pull off the "Perfect Crime" Phyllis saw that opportunity arise in a fight that Paul had with Gino at a wine grower convention over him selling his vineyards to an out of town and get rich quick shyster outfit. Despite making up with Gino in private all those that were at the convention saw was the slug, or better yet slapping, feast the two had in public. Knowing that Paul was to cut short his precipitation at the convention and go home Phyllis waited for him, with a revolver in hand, to show up and blow him away making it look like he was a prowler trying to break into the house! The thing that screwed up Pyllis' plan was that Gino coming to talk business over with Paul, not Paul, got there first and ended up being shot to death with Phyllis mistaking him for Paul!***SPOILERS*** With Phyllis faced with a possible murder charge Paul together with Phyllis concoct a plan where he'll take the rap in accidentally killing Gino where she can be free to look after her and Paul's 8 year old son, from a previous marriage, Michael, Gary Hunley, while he in awaiting trial spends the next few months behind bars. The one thing that Phyllis and her boyfriend San, who was in on her murderous plan, never anticipated, until it was too late was the sick and frail and not having long to live Momma Emma Hochen, Beulah Bondi, overheard the whole ghastly plan to murder her son Paul which put a wrench into it! That's if Momma Hochen lived long enough enough to tell to police about it! ***MAJOR SPOILER**** It was also Momma Hochen who knowing that her daughter-in-law Phyllis was totally rotten without a decent bone in her entire body that she took the institutive and did the unthinkable in getting her convicted of a crime that she didn't commit! That was to make up for Phyllis getting off Scot-free for a crime that she did!The very fine acting, especially by Rod Steiger, made up for the so-so script that at times seemed totally unbelievable. There's also the drop dead gorgeous British actress Diana Dors as Phyllis Hochen to look at when the movie got a bit confusing and hard to follow. And of course there's Arther Franz as Paul's older brother Father Steven Hochen who finally got Phyllis to fess up and take responsibly for what she did in her killing Gino while sent to the San Quentin gas chamber for a crime that she didn't commit. Yet ironically had everything to do with it having happened!

dbdumonteil Next to last movie by John Farrow,this work is a return to the style of some of his earlier films Noirs ,particularly "Alias Nick Beal" and above all William Irish's (aka Cornell Woolrich)" the night has a thousand eyes" :what was written in the stars in the 1948 effort (thus everything man does to change his fate is pointless) has become a supernatural (shall we say divine?) intervention.This immanent justice,the old lady believes in it and she is sure that God will know his own.Ray Milland portrayed the Devil in "Alias Nick Beal" which was an updated Faust .Diana Dors portrays another devil with a red dress on.The title says it all: "the unholy wife" is a Christian movie (In Irish's books the Gods are closer to the Greek divinities) ,which the presence of a priest in the family (the husband's brother) reinforces . The story,which is a long flashback ,is a long confession -and becomes a true one ,in the religious sense of the term in the last sequence.There's an unusually inventive use of colors ,with blue ,yellow and black predominance .Hot Diana Dors 'look sharply contrasts with the prisoner in jail.Farrow 's obsession of time running out recalls "the big clock" (remade as " no way out" by Roger Donaldson with Johnny Depp); it was also present in "night has a thousand eyes" .Time becomes a matter of life .The big clock invented by Farrow and Latimer in 1948 was a splendid metaphor of this time which is rarely on man's side.

arrival Dark and brooding suspense Thriller starring Diana Dors.Whoever said that blondes were dumb has not seen Diana Dors as the 'Unholy Wife'! Giving one of her greatest performances, she plays the beautiful, but deadly wife of Rod Steiger in this marvellous and riveting Movie with a startling twist at the very end! Dors has an agenda of her own, and shows an adept ability at changing her evil plans at the blink of an eye to fit the new circumstances she finds herself in. Looking so good here, Dors has a way of making you want her to get away with everything she can for the handsome San Sanders played by Tom Tryon.One of two Films Diana made at around the same time, as a woman facing the death penalty.

ptb-8 The comment by Melvelvit also on this site is fantastic...and I think he is right. I have only just discovered this - yes - lurid thriller - made in the final days of RKO, and it is as much fun in a demented way as it is genuinely interesting. Now that I have seen the film again with Melvelvit's believable comments under my, er, belt, well, it might just be Rod Steiger after all, and not poor Diana at all who is the genuine Unholy Wife. All that (later) Baby Jane and Charlotte campery can be seen it its seed form in this well produced, decorated stylish dark mansion melodrama...complete with trashy rodeo handsome hick and lusty barfly floozies for added tarty extras. Imagine running a cinema in the mid to late 50s and having RKO call you once a month offering double features of any of these mix'n'match titles: SON OF SINBAD / THE FRENCH LINE / SLIGHTLY SCARLET / INFERNO / THE UNHOLY WIFE/ THE GIRL MOST LIKELY etc. What a life there was for some excited cinema goer!