Review of Woman of Straw

Enjoyable, if extraordinarily far-fetched story from Catherine Arley's novel concerns an Italian nurse employed by an aged British multi-millionaire, a contemptible, wheelchair-bound hypochondriac who is also an elitist and a racist. She quits after the old man watches joyfully while one of his servants nearly drowns, but the tycoon's urbane nephew stops her. He has an axe to grind (the uncle having driven the nephew's father to suicide before marrying his mother) and wants the nurse to charm the old man until he proposes marriage...and rewrites his will leaving everything to her. To buy into this plot, one has to believe the nurse (Gina Lollobrigida) and the nephew (Sean Connery) have an intimate relationship going on in secret, but there's obviously nothing passionate happening between the two stars--they are an icy match. It may be argued that chemistry between Lollobrigida and Connery isn't important; true, their relationship is a plot mechanism, though it is the starting point from which the second-half of the drama takes its cue. Cantankerous Ralph Richardson steals the movie from the leads, anyway--even when he has no lines. The film is slick and well-produced, though it hints at a potentially delectable dark side that never quite materializes. Lollobrigida's nurse is so moral, so honest that she's a bit of a pain. Connery, playing an unlikable cad, gets a chance to show fear near the end--and being rattled really suits him. **1/2 from ****