A beautifully shot and acted film (for the most part) suffers from awkward staging and has believeability problems. The director can't seem to make up his mind whether it's going to be a filmed play (like "Long Day's Journey into Night") or a real movie adaptation of a play.
As for the acting, everyone is excellent with one notable exception - Kim Novak has the same problem that her character does. She's pretty and the camera loves her, but her performance leaves you wondering if she understood the story at all. Her famous dance with William Holden is very sexy, but she plays it completely wrong, with absolutely no character or expression. Rosalind Russell, with her incredible unrestrained performance, just makes her Novak look that much worse.
My favorite scene is the one where Russell has just pleaded with O'Connell to marry her. He's driving away and she clutches one of the posts on the porch, underneath the sign "Room For Rent". If there was ever an image that summed up the lives of women in the 1950s, this was it.
As for the acting, everyone is excellent with one notable exception - Kim Novak has the same problem that her character does. She's pretty and the camera loves her, but her performance leaves you wondering if she understood the story at all. Her famous dance with William Holden is very sexy, but she plays it completely wrong, with absolutely no character or expression. Rosalind Russell, with her incredible unrestrained performance, just makes her Novak look that much worse.
My favorite scene is the one where Russell has just pleaded with O'Connell to marry her. He's driving away and she clutches one of the posts on the porch, underneath the sign "Room For Rent". If there was ever an image that summed up the lives of women in the 1950s, this was it.