Review: The Truth About Women

An aging man of moderate nobility converses with his son-in-law about his life and loves in the hopes of setting the young man’s mind at ease about his own female troubles. We see this in flashbacks as Laurence Harvey recounts his dalliances with various members of the fairer sex. He regales both son-in-law and audience with tales from his beginnings as quite the philandering cad (hello, Eva Gabor as an unhappily married woman, and Diane Cilento as an early feminist) to forming more substantial relationships with women (the latter includes painter Julie Harris and nurse Mai Zetterling). Christopher Lee plays an offended French diplomat who catches Harvey with his betrothed Eva Gabor.

 

A not especially interesting 1957 British romantic comedy/drama, with an unlikeable Laurence Harvey being only half the problem here. He’s well-cast for what the first half of the film requires of him, but far too caddish to sell the character’s transition in the second half. Laurence Harvey and sympathy don’t go so well together on screen. It’s not a bad performance, just too smug and serious for the character and material. From the producer-writer-director team of Muriel and Sydney Box (writers of the terrific “The Seventh Veil”), this episodic film has a basic idea that could’ve worked, but the execution is off.  There are a few decent moments and supporting performances, but overall adds up to very little of anything.

 

There’s a particularly tedious and utterly tasteless segment involving Harvey falling for a harem girl and going blackface to woo her. Yep, that’s a thing that happens here. It’s a good-looking film, and there’s some lovely work by Diane Cilento (as Harvey’s first love), and especially Eva Gabor and Julie Harris, the latter stealing the entire film in short order. She’s terrific and likeable, and even Harvey is at his best with her. Sadly, she’s not long for the film. Veteran character actor Roland Culver is always good value, and the segment involving Christopher Lee as an affronted French suitor is rather cute. The rest is a bust, and you wish the much more likeable Michael Denison had the lead role instead of cold fish Harvey. The talents of Thorley Walters are particularly sorely wasted in a dud role as Zetterling’s enraged husband, though Ernest Thesiger somehow manages to steal mere seconds of screen time as a judge. That takes some real talent given the scant screen time and stock role afforded him.

 

Some good support work and a decent moment here or there aren’t enough to keep this rather dull film afloat. Laurence Harvey isn’t likeable enough to want to spend an entire film with his character, and the others in the cast aren’t in the film for terribly long stretches. That’s especially the case for the women, because this film suggests that the truth about women is that they exist solely to serve as minor parts in a man’s story about himself. The most interesting thing here? The appearance of an actress named Ambrosine Phillpotts, who for some weird reason is made up and dressed to look exactly like Lady Tremaine from Disney’s animated “Cinderella” from 7 years before. It’s unmistakable, but…why is it a thing at all? I seem to be the only person who has picked up on it, and it’s very, very weird. Am I seeing things that aren’t really there?

 

Rating: C-