The Unholy Wife

Plot synopsis:
The film begins with Phyllis (Diana Dors) telling her story in flashbacks. It begins how she meets rich vintner Paul Hochen (Rod Steiger) from Napa Valley in a bar and marries him soon after.
Not long after the marriage, Phyllis begins having an affair with a local rodeo rider, San Sanford (Tom Tryon), seeing him every time her husband is away, which is frequently. One night, her elderly mother-in-law (Beulah Bondi) thinks a burglar is breaking into the house, so she calls the police. Phyllis sees this as an opportunity to kill her husband and blame the burglar for the crime. The plan backfires a day later when she instead kills her husband's best friend. Not wanting to go to jail, she convinces her husband to confess to the killing and they concoct a story that would set him free after the trial.
Unfortunately for her husband, Phyllis lies at the trial and he is put away for murder. The "unholy" wife finally gets the punishment she deserves when her mother-in-law dies of poisoning and the blame goes to Phyllis, who is sent to prison—for a crime she had nothing to do with. Later, she faces her execution in the gas chamber. The film ends with Paul showing their son Michael (Gary Hunley) the vineyard that will someday be his.

Tags: murder

Review:
Bombshell Diana Dors  surprise!
She would become something of a joke, even to herself, as her self-mocking appearance in the Joan Crawford fright vehicle Berserk attests.But when we first see her, in a prison cell, in John Farrow's The Unholy Wife, her face is innocent of makeup and her mousy brown hair is raked back.
She plays the grass-widow wife of a long-gone pilot and lurks in bars cadging drinks from potential sugar-daddies (her workmate is Marie Windsor, in a stingy tease of a role).
She meets and marries lonesome Rod Steiger, who runs a family vineyard in the California wine country (shades of The Most Happy Fella).
But she's restless and sullen, left in the huge gingerbread mansion with her aging mother-in-law (Beulah Bondi) and her pre-existing young son while Steiger stays obsessed with his casks and bottles.
Alas, she kills his best friend instead, but comes up with a ploy by which Steiger will be convicted of the murder....The Unholy Wife is slow and moody rather than tense and agile; Lucien Ballard's color photography shows the dark, muted interiors that would later distinguish the Godfather movies.
But Dors, who starts out high-strung and abrasive, mellows down into a conflicted and even touching trophy wife maneuvered into homicide less out of greed or lust than by stifling boredom; she offers more dimensions than the black-hearted Jezebel demanded by the plot and throws it out of kilter.
The Unholy Wife finds itself stranded midway between being a brooding marital drama and a suspense story, now meriting attention chiefly because of the underappreciated Dors..
Now that I have seen the film again with Melvelvit's believable comments under my, er, belt, well, it might just be Rod Steiger after all, and not poor Diana at all who is the genuine Unholy Wife.
Imagine running a cinema in the mid to late 50s and having RKO call you once a month offering double features of any of these mix'n'match titles: SON OF SINBAD / THE FRENCH LINE / SLIGHTLY SCARLET / INFERNO / THE UNHOLY WIFE/ THE GIRL MOST LIKELY etc.
As devoted to Blonde Bombshells as I am to food and oxygen, on first viewing The Unholy Wife I really wanted / NEEDED this film to be great.
Lackluster murder drama, though Diana Dors is very, very good.
Diana Dors shows in "The Unholy Wife" that besides a smashing, busty figure she had serious acting chops as well (even when she is completely un-glamorous in the "present day"scenes).
For some reason this film has a "B-movie" quality about it and I think it has something to do with the lead actress, Diana Dors.
Be that as it may, in this film she plays "Phyllis Hochen" who is the conniving wife of a rich wine-maker ("Paul Hochen") played by Rod Steiger.
Instead she is having an affair with a local rodeo cowboy named "San Sanders" (Tom Tryon).
Anyway, add in an average script, weak directing (John Farrow) and mediocre acting all around and it pretty much rates a "5 out of 10".
Diana Dors at her very best!.
Dark and brooding suspense Thriller starring Diana Dors.Whoever said that blondes were dumb has not seen Diana Dors as the 'Unholy Wife'!
Giving one of her greatest performances, she plays the beautiful, but deadly wife of Rod Steiger in this marvellous and riveting Movie with a startling twist at the very end!
Looking so good here, Dors has a way of making you want her to get away with everything she can for the handsome San Sanders played by Tom Tryon.One of two Films Diana made at around the same time, as a woman facing the death penalty..
Next to last movie by John Farrow,this work is a return to the style of some of his earlier films Noirs ,particularly "Alias Nick Beal" and above all William Irish's (aka Cornell Woolrich)" the night has a thousand eyes" :what was written in the stars in the 1948 effort (thus everything man does to change his fate is pointless) has become a supernatural (shall we say divine?) intervention.This immanent justice,the old lady believes in it and she is sure that God will know his own.Ray Milland portrayed the Devil in "Alias Nick Beal" which was an updated Faust .Diana Dors portrays another devil with a red dress on.The title says it all: "the unholy wife" is a Christian movie (In Irish's books the Gods are closer to the Greek divinities) ,which the presence of a priest in the family (the husband's brother) reinforces .
The story,which is a long flashback ,is a long confession -and becomes a true one ,in the religious sense of the term in the last sequence.There's an unusually inventive use of colors ,with blue ,yellow and black predominance .Hot Diana Dors 'look sharply contrasts with the prisoner in jail.Farrow 's obsession of time running out recalls "the big clock" (remade as " no way out" by Roger Donaldson with Johnny Depp); it was also present in "night has a thousand eyes" .Time becomes a matter of life .The big clock invented by Farrow and Latimer in 1948 was a splendid metaphor of this time which is rarely on man's side..
In this more-or-less re-hash of DOUBLE INDEMNITY, Diana Dors' Phyllis is a lot more sympathetic than Billy Wilder's femme fatale -which puts a very strange spin on things.
As a wealthy California vineyard owner's wife, Dors sneaks off to the wine cellar to tryst with her rodeo stunt-rider lover (Tom Tryon) and decides to knock off her husband (Rod Steiger) but the plan backfires when she accidentally shoots his best friend (Gilbert Roland) instead.
Things get convoluted rather quickly when a resourceful Diana sees an opportunity to frame Steiger for the crime.
There's crosses and double-crosses galore with a satisfyingly ironic twist ending but what sets this film apart is the small scenes geared to humanize this murderess.
Later on, in prison, Rod confesses to his priest brother (Arthur Franz) that he never loved Di and only married her because a Korean War wound prevented him from ever having children so he saw an opportunity to take hers because he needed an heir for his Napa Valley dynasty.
It's Steiger who's the real unholy "wife" -and not just because he's an adult male still living with his mom.
Once married, Phyllis tries to be a good wife and is tearfully thankful someone would overlook her sordid past to make a life for her and her son.
Because Steiger leaves her alone all the time in a brooding mansion with his invalid mother (Beulah Bondi), one isn't all that surprised she'd take a lover.
Shockingly, in the end, the real unholy "wife" gets exactly what HE wanted: an heir to his vineyards with no wife in sight.Just before Dors is led to the gas chamber for her crimes, she confesses to her priest brother-in-law that, "Yes, Father, I'm truly sorry for what I've done." She's blessed, and if you're of a religious bent, you just know she'll stand before those pearly gates!Kind of campy (there's times you'll want to choke Steiger's mom), definitely over-wrought, and at times over-the-top, the tag line on posters for THE UNHOLY WIFE screamed: "HALF angel, HALF devil, she made him HALF a man!
This is where she met them, made love to them, laughed with them at her husband ...the man who gave her a name, a home and a heritage...the man she wanted to destroy!" This lurid come-on doesn't quite ring true once you see the film.
The Korean War (or his gaiety) made him that way, and it's what he did to HER that put the whole dark scenario in motion.Diana Dors, "England's answer to Marilyn Monroe", glows in the dark in this color-noir from RKO.
Rod Steiger probably needed a can-opener to get her out of that ensemble.Added bonus: Marie Windsor's always a pleasure.
She co-hooks with Dors in a tres bizarre nightclub and, lounging on bar-stools waiting to get picked up by dudes with lotsa dough, these ladies of the night are killer!****NOTE****What's up with the movie's title?
What's strange is the fact that the sanctity of MARRIAGE and the CHURCH may be the only "unholy" things in this film.
In the twist ending, the priest knows D.D. isn't guilty of murdering her mother-in-law, but allows her to be convicted and put to death anyway.
Diana's marriage is nothing more than deceitful sham and (technically) the only thing the lady was guilty of was accidentally killing a man.
Either way it's an odd choice of role for RKO to give it's new sex-symbol star, the tawdry tale wasn't even entirely new to the public as it had already been a tele-play on live TV under it's original title, THE LADY AND THE PROWLER.
Talking to a fellow IMDber a few years ago on the IMDb Film Noir board (RIP!) I got told about a great-sounding Noir starring Diana Dors and Rod Steiger.
Despite the postage price tag being a bit hefty,I decided it was time to at last meet the unholy wife.The plot:Moving to the US from London, Phyllis gets married to former pilot/now vineyard owner Paul,and has a son Michael with him.
Over the next six years,vines grow on their marriage,which leads to Phyllis falling out of love with Paul.
Looking for a spark in life,Phyllis becomes tangled in an affair with rodeo San Sanders.
Desiring a fresh start in life,Phyllis makes a plan with San to kill Paul.
Going out with a gun one night,Phyllis aims to kill Paul,but in the dark accidentally kills his pal Gino Verdugo.
Running back into the house,Phyllis starts changing her plan to manipulate Paul,so he can fade into the darkness of the night for her.View on the film:Gliding across the screen, the alluring Diana Dors gives an incredible performance as Phyllis, whose seductive innocence Dors threads into a Femme Fatale ruthlessness of Phyllis manipulating Paul and San to play her tune.
Looking back on her games in flashbacks, Dors digs her nails deep into Phyllis Femme Fatale state of mind,that Dors transforms from being devilishly mischievous,to life completely from Phyllis's face.
Caught between Tryon and Phyllis, Rod Steiger gives a brittle performance as Paul.
Worn down by the years of a loveless marriage, Steiger's brings out Paul's attempts to grasp of what little remains of the Phyllis he knew.
Introducing the leading lady in a washed-out close-up,director John Farrow & cinematographer Lucien Ballard bravely contrast the glamour of the Film Noir with raw present-set scenes splashed with murky colours that subtly bring the bad times to Phyllis and her guys.
Hearing Phyllis and San's plans on the grapevine, Farrow and Ballard give the flashbacks a ruby red appearance which brims a fantastic atmosphere of a "Woman's Picture" that has gone off the tracks into Film Noir,as scattered close-ups uncover the rot eating away in the vineyard.Mapping out the state of Paul and Phyllis's romance as she makes a plot with San, the screenplay by Jonathan Latimer and William Durkee pour a glass of cracking Film Noir dialogue,that is shaken with a harsh pessimism and jet-black comedic one-liners.
Whilst having to go for a "spiritual" ending that the Hays Code would accept, the writers make Phyllis's journey to the spirit world be one that takes a wrong turn to merciless desire for murder,and a calculating Femme Fatale knife edge,where the unholy wife stands..
***SPOILERS*** In a very reserved and non method and overacting, that were used to seeing him back in the 1950's and 1960's, role Rod Steiger steals the movie, even though he's the star in it, as the sensitive tragic as well as guilt-ridden California wine baron Paul Hochen.We already see that Paul is up the creek with his wife Phyllis, Diana Dors, in prison clothes and her bleached blond hair a ruddy brown spilling her guts out to how she tried to frame him in the murder of his best friend and fellow wine grower Gino Verdugo, Joe DeSantis.
As Phyllis tells her story the movie goes into flashback as we see the events that lead up to Gino's tragic death.
It seemed that Phyllis was having an affair with bronco busting rodeo cowboy San Sanders, Tom Tyron, behind her husbands back.
If that wasn't bad enough Phyllis planned to murder Paul and make it look like an accident in that he was mistaken for a prowler trying to break into the Hochen Mansion.
Waiting for the right moment to pull off the "Perfect Crime" Phyllis saw that opportunity arise in a fight that Paul had with Gino at a wine grower convention over him selling his vineyards to an out of town and get rich quick shyster outfit.
Knowing that Paul was to cut short his precipitation at the convention and go home Phyllis waited for him, with a revolver in hand, to show up and blow him away making it look like he was a prowler trying to break into the house!
The thing that screwed up Pyllis' plan was that Gino coming to talk business over with Paul, not Paul, got there first and ended up being shot to death with Phyllis mistaking him for Paul!***SPOILERS*** With Phyllis faced with a possible murder charge Paul together with Phyllis concoct a plan where he'll take the rap in accidentally killing Gino where she can be free to look after her and Paul's 8 year old son, from a previous marriage, Michael, Gary Hunley, while he in awaiting trial spends the next few months behind bars.
The one thing that Phyllis and her boyfriend San, who was in on her murderous plan, never anticipated, until it was too late was the sick and frail and not having long to live Momma Emma Hochen, Beulah Bondi, overheard the whole ghastly plan to murder her son Paul which put a wrench into it!
***MAJOR SPOILER**** It was also Momma Hochen who knowing that her daughter-in-law Phyllis was totally rotten without a decent bone in her entire body that she took the institutive and did the unthinkable in getting her convicted of a crime that she didn't commit!
That was to make up for Phyllis getting off Scot-free for a crime that she did!The very fine acting, especially by Rod Steiger, made up for the so-so script that at times seemed totally unbelievable.
There's also the drop dead gorgeous British actress Diana Dors as Phyllis Hochen to look at when the movie got a bit confusing and hard to follow.
And of course there's Arther Franz as Paul's older brother Father Steven Hochen who finally got Phyllis to fess up and take responsibly for what she did in her killing Gino while sent to the San Quentin gas chamber for a crime that she didn't commit.
Diana Dors is seen on death row telling her story of how her own greed lead to her downfall.
She is married to wealthy vineyard owner Rod Steiger whom she met in a bar, but bored spending the day taking care of his elderly mother, she is soon involved in an affair with rodeo horseman Tom Tryon.
She commits a murder which her husband is blamed for.I have seen several films with blonde bombshell Diana Dors, and I just don't get her appeal.
She certainly isn't beautiful enough to rank up there with Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield; She's sort of a second-rate "Baby Doll" with a bit of a Gloria Grahame type pout thrown in and is truly unbelievable here as the vixenish wife.
She has twice as much hair as Mansfield and Monroe combined, and a head too small which looks like a lion who needs his mane trimmed.
In an attempt to soften his demeanor from early villain roles, Rod Steiger sensitizes his personality in an effort to move into a leading role.
His character does have many different nuances-soft at times yet strong in his business dealings, but ultimately stupid for ending up with Dors.
Had this been a better script with a better leading lady, it would have been genuinely chilling to see Bondi's fear grow during the spooky storm that ends up with a visit by death.
But late RKO's color films looked somewhat washed out and were poorly photographed, so it is not too surprising that they were only a few films away from turning strictly into a TV studio.Marie Windsor, whose days as a film noir femme fatale were over, is wasted here as Dors' pal.
I feel bad for Rod Steiger here; He really tries to do something with his character, but the script defeats him and he comes off as a small touch of class in an otherwise trashy story.
This is a film that works better as a pulp fiction book with a colorful cover that leaves everything else to the imagination..
This is truly a pathetic movie--I watched it only because it has Rod Steiger in it and a lady whom I did not know and mistook for Marilyn Monroe.
It turns out she was Diana Dors, a Brit who seems to be cast as the typical dumb but beautiful blonde.
Steiger is awful and mumbles and stumbles through his performance (and he looks super fat here).
The ending, showing grape fields and Steiger hoisting his young son while showing him how to eat a grape is saccharine in the extreme.
The plot makes no sense: who would believe that the blonde would murder the mother in law, when it was equally as possible for her to have committed suicide (which she actually did)?
Dors seems to have some acting talent but the studio and director seemed to have only one thing on their mind: her curves.
But that doesn't mean the movie in question has to turn out like this.From the opening scene, the platinum blonde Dors (dark eyebrows and all) glides rather indifferently through this noctambulant drama.
Her scenes from the post-murder flashback are admittedly a bit better.
Steiger gives an earnest effort, but can't overcome Farrow's direction.