User Reviews

Because this episode of "Four Star Playhouse" stars Ronald Colman, and I love seeing him in just about anything, I am glad I watched it. As usual, his charm and grace were in abundance...it's just too bad the script seemed to be a bit ill-defined.

Colman plays a psychiatrist--the analyst-type that was very popular back in the mid-20th century. So, he has the typical couch, asks a lot of questions and is generally non-directive in his approach most of the time (in other words, not much like a modern therapist). This episode is set during one of his days...and involves his listening to the problems of three women. In each case, he finds himself drifting into a daydream as he stares at a Dali style painting--and soon you see him acting out his fantasies with the women. One is a bit alarming, as it's obvious that he's having some counter-transference issues (with some romantic notions towards his client), but the other three are pretty funny. However, the sum total of all this is very slight and the exact point isn't very clear. In some ways, however, this could have made for an interesting series--but it all just needed to be hashed out more in order for viewers to want to watch.

Milton Merlin wrote three Four Star Playhouse episodes starring Ronald Colman, and I disliked the other two for various reasons. But "Ladies on His Mind" is a singular achievement, unlike anything I've seen recently while watching over a hundred anthology segments from 1950s and early 1960s television.

Colman plays a psychiatrist, married to solid, down to earth Benita Hume, his wife in real life (who married George Sanders after Colman's death!). As a comical touch (in this very droll comedy) she is fixated on reupholstering Colman's couch in his office, upon which his femme patients lie while pouring out their stories to him. Colman boasts of his detachment, able to help his patients without becoming emotionally involved in their cases.

He encounters three contrasting beauties, and director Robert Florey, with a Dadaist painting hanging above the couch in Colman's office for inspiration, stages a sort of ballet or pantomime conjured up by Colman as he listens to each of them.

Impressive casting has brunette Patricia Morison as a housewife with marital problems, and in their fantasy dance Colman expresses romantic warmth, lacking from her husband. Morison reminded me a lot of Emily Blunt in her styling here.

Blonde Elisabeth Fraser is a patient torn between two men, her husband and his best friend, with clearly the friend more appealing to her. Colman is inspired by this to have a romantic dance with her.

Third patient is a newcomer, a striking, severe blonde beauty played by Hillary Brooke as almost a femdom, condescending in the way she speaks about her husband of seven years, and Colman has a pantomime scene with her where he poisons her to death, after which he pretty much gives her the brush off, ending her brief stay as a patient.

These fantasy scenes on abstract sets are reminiscent of a Gene Kelly movie, especially "Invitation to the Dance" (that was made three years AFTER this show aired), with Colman an odd but effective substitute for perhaps Astaire (who could have played this Four Star role). Director Florey was a master of movie suspense, and while watching this show I immediately thought of the famous Salvador Dali dream sequence in Hitchcock's "Spellbound". The theme of hiding one's true feelings under a cold, detached facade is brilliantly explored with highly literate dialogue and an elegant comic touch -hardly what was typical of American television in 1953 (or now).

Ronald Colman is one of those players who with the lilt of his voice can make a reading of Erie County phone directory a treat for the ear. But even that can get tiresome after a while. So could this play which is completely dependent on one getting and keeping your attention with Colman's voice and diction.

For a half hour we listened to Colman first with his wife and then at his office rhapsodize about professional responsibility. Husband and wife are easy here as Colman is paired with his real life spouse Benita Hume and co-star of his popular radio show Halls Of Ivy.

But it seems as though Colman is given to voyeur like fantasies as his patients tell their tales. What a practice this guy has, all glamorous women like Patricia Morison, Hillary Brooke, and Elizabeth Fraser. As they talk Colman imagines himself in their lives. After a while the audience feels like a voyeur.

I love Ronald Colman, but this was too much for him to carry.

Psychiatrist Dr Bosanquent (Ronald Colman) is the one who has ladies on his mind.

Three of his patients talk to him about their problems. His mind drifts as he has a reverie about being involved in their stories.

The first patient has marital issues. The second is torn between two men, the third seems to have a hen pecked husband.

I think this story might have been inspired by the Salvador Dali inspired dream sequence in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound.

Unfortunately this does not work. It is just uninteresting and dull. Only Hillary Brooke makes an impression as a dominant wife that Dr Bosanquent dreams of poisoning.