The Unholy Wife 1957 Story by William Durkee, screenplay by Jonathan Latimer, direction by John Farrow. Jonathan wrote a good number of screenplays between 1937 and 1972 including Topper Returns, The Glass Key, Night Has A Thousand Eyes, The Big Clock and Whistling In Dixie. He also wrote 32 episodes of Perry Mason. John was Mia's father, his other credits include 29 scripts, he directed 49 films. The film he directed before this one was Around The World In 80 Days. I've not seen many of his movies.
The Unholy Wife was about the last movie that RKO made. It was filmed in 1956 and a few months into 1957 the company had ceased film making. Diana Dors signed to make I Married A Woman with George Gobel and while they were shooting that in early 1956 they signed her up for two more films. The Unholy Wife was filmed in the fall of 1956 and the third film was dropped when RKO closed up. Diana sued RKO for defamation of character, she sued for $1.25 mil and settled out of court for $200,000. She was 26 when she made the picture. She worked both in the UK and the US and she was married to Richard Dawson of Hogan's Heroes fame in the 60s.
Diana plays Rod Steiger's wife, he's a vintner in Napa Valley, Beulah Bondi is Rod's mom, they all live in a nice big house. Mom is a nervous wreck and when we first meet her she's upset. She thinks that someone was prowling around the house and called the cops. Diana has little sympathy for her and she's mad the mom called the cops. They come and they don't find anyone near by, Diana tells them that Beulah is often hearing things and upset over little.
Diana isn't happy with her situation in most ways. She's got Tom Tryon as a bit on the side but she doesn't want to give up her nice life style. She schemes to kill her husband and marry Tom later. The plan goes all to hell when she kills his best friend. She tells Rod that she killed someone before and the police will find out and deport her and her son. Rod takes the blame, saying it was an accident, and goes to court with everyone thinking he has a good chance of getting off. Their concoction doesn't go down very well and Rod is sent to prison.
Things unravel further when Beulah dies of poison, Dian gets blamed, even though she didn't do it. She confesses to the shooting of Rod's pal and heads for the gas chamber. Rod is free to enjoy his grape fields with Diana's son. The son was the real reason he married her, he couldn't have children because of a war wound, he didn't like Diana that much but wanted a son. It's a helluva price to pay for a son but at least he's out of prison.
What a household, huh. Easily the sort of thing you'd want to watch on TV and not experience first hand. It's still a fairly decent film, I gave it a 6 on the IMDb, with a good cast that also includes Tol Avery, Marie Windsor, Joe De Santis and Arthur Franz.
I found a copy on YouTube but it disappeared right away. Oddly, a copy showed up on Rarelust that you can download. There's no DVD available, other than as a bootleg. Here's a couple more posters and the paperback cover.
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