A Woman's Secret boasts a distinguished pedigree. Vicki (Grand Hotel) Baum wrote the novel, adapted for the screen by Herman (Citizen Kane) Mankiewicz, directed by the young Nicholas (In A Lonely Place) Ray and photographed by George Diskant. Its starry cast includes Maureen O'Hara and Gloria Grahame, Melvyn Douglas, Victor Jory, Bill Williams and the estimable character actor Jay C. Flippen. That's a lot of talent to be lavished on what is little more than a diverting piffle a genteel mystery set in New York show-biz circles. Why, nobody even dies.
O'Hara plays a faded singer and Grahame her wildly successful protegée (Estrellita, or :Little Star'). One night a shot rings out, critically wounding Grahame. O'Hara confesses, claiming that she wouldn't let Grahame abandon the career she had built for her and through which she relived her own dreams. Grumpy musical gadfly Douglas doesn't buy the confession, and most of the movie unfolds through a series of flashbacks told from various points of view. But Citizen Kane it ain't.
Despite side-trips to Paris and Algiers (and a hotel key from Lafitte Parish, Louisiana), A Woman's Secret stays a tepid basin of soap-opera suds. Its most endearing element comes from police inspector Flippen and his amateur-sleuth wife Mary Philips, who steal every scene they're in (not that there's much to steal). Were they Hitchcock's inspiration for Alec McCowan and Vivien Merchant in Frenzy? They were the best thing about that movie, too.
O'Hara plays a faded singer and Grahame her wildly successful protegée (Estrellita, or :Little Star'). One night a shot rings out, critically wounding Grahame. O'Hara confesses, claiming that she wouldn't let Grahame abandon the career she had built for her and through which she relived her own dreams. Grumpy musical gadfly Douglas doesn't buy the confession, and most of the movie unfolds through a series of flashbacks told from various points of view. But Citizen Kane it ain't.
Despite side-trips to Paris and Algiers (and a hotel key from Lafitte Parish, Louisiana), A Woman's Secret stays a tepid basin of soap-opera suds. Its most endearing element comes from police inspector Flippen and his amateur-sleuth wife Mary Philips, who steal every scene they're in (not that there's much to steal). Were they Hitchcock's inspiration for Alec McCowan and Vivien Merchant in Frenzy? They were the best thing about that movie, too.