When we Morlocks were given our marching orders and asked to give Gloria Grahame the spotlight, I put dibs down on A Woman’s Secret (1949). Mainly it was because I’ve been brushing up on my Nicholas Ray films recently. Within this last year I saw film prints of On Dangerous Ground (1952), Johnny Guitar (1954), and Bigger Than Life (1956) – all of which, incidentally, screened at the Film Forum in New York as part of their July 24 – August 6th Nick Ray retrospective (on July 28th they screened A Woman’s Secret, which is also coming up on TCM). One claim to fame for A Woman’s Secret is that it’s where Ray would meet his second-wife: Gloria Grahame.

Gloria Grahame and Nicholas Ray

When Ray was shooting A Woman’s Secret he’d already been divorced from his first wife, Jean Evans, with whom he’d had one son (Tony) in 1937. At this same time, Grahame was still married to actor Stanley Clements, but that didn’t stop the chemistry between her and Ray from getting her pregnant – and so she and Ray hopped over to Vegas in June of 1948 where she was able to get a quick divorce from Clements followed by a a speedy marriage to Ray. When their one child, Timothy, was born in November of 1948 they made up the excuse that it was born premature so as to avoid any sense of impropriety, but most people knew the score and an eyebrow or two may have been raised.

The same can not be said for the reaction that followed Ray’s separation from Grahame in 1950 (followed by a divorce in 1952). Ray discovered Grahame in bed with his then 13-year-old son, Tony, whom she would later marry in 1960. Contemporary readers can probably still remember the uproar that greeted Woody Allen’s revelation that he was having a relationship with Soon-Yi Previn and can then imagine how this similar transgression on Grahame’s part was received several decades earlier. Or, to quote Grahame herself: “”I married Nicholas Ray, the director. People yawned. Later on I married his son, and from the press’s reaction – you’d have thought I was committing incest or robbing the cradle!”

These salacious details may seem an irrelevant backstory to A Woman’s Secret, but I think they add an interesting context to Grahame’s character within the film as well as point to a problem with the title because, really, no woman ever has just one secret. Other titles considered were Mortgage on Life, One Star Must Shine, and The Long Denial.  My favorite one comes from Italy: Hai sempre mentito. I believe that translates into something like Always There are Lies. And that is what is really going on in this film. The story revolves around two women, neither of which is telling the truth, and is from a screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz that employs unreliable flashbacks. So, yes, watch out for the lies.

Gloria's turn to raise an eyebrow.

The setup is easy: A singer, Susan (Gloria Grahame), comes home and has a fight with her personal manager, Marian (Maureen O’Hara). Shortly thereafter a gun shot is heard, a servant runs into the room and finds Marian standing over Susan’s body, the police are called, Maureen confesses to the act and the police inform her that if Susan doesn’t pull out from her unconscious and critical state she’ll face a homicide charge.

Maureen O'Hara shows her tough side.

But Marian’s friend, Luke Jordan (Melvyn Douglas) doesn’t buy it. He thinks Marian’s lying and he wants to know why. And so the flashbacks and reconstructions begin. It’s a structural effect that Mankiewicz used to great effect in Citizen Kane (1941), where it culminated in one of the most celebrated payoffs in cinematic history. Here, the opposite is true. The stakes aren’t as high and if you rest your expectations on a satisfying resolution then you’ll most certainly be disappointed. Just as you’ll be disappointed if you settle in with hopes of getting a noir fix – or even a “mini-noir” fix (as it’s sometimes sold). No, best to enjoy this for the ride itself, and not the destination. See it for what it is, a melodrama. Upon its release it might have been referred to as “a woman’s picture.” Nowadays maybe it’d be filed under the more crass moniker of “a chick flick.” Neither of those quite ring true, as A Woman’s Secret is clouded by so many male perspectives, but at least it’s based on a novel by Vicki Baum, who also authored Grand Hotel.

Gloria Grahame as Susan, in flashback sequence.

More selling points? Well… here we can get back to Grahame and O’Hara. Whatever their respective dynamic ranges, both narrow the dial and keep it on a sizzle. The dresses are provocative and, as Frank Miller here at TCM notes, even “Leading man Melvyn Douglas would later say it was the only time he had found himself physically aroused while shooting love scenes.”

So what to make of this, Nicholas Ray’s second film? Cullen Gallagher writing for Not coming to a theater near you refers to is as “arguably one of the most maligned and ignored films of his career.” But it’s also placed in the constellation of such films as Laura (1944) and All About Eve (1950), if not in terms of quality certainly in terms of its thematic terrain. I also agree with Gallagher that “A Woman’s Secret feels like a failed mixture of Preminger’s judicial dramaturgy, with a dose of Hitchcockian humor.” These latter attempts, I must add, often falling flat and feeling strained.

Still, fascinating to see this and think; ah, here begins the train wreck between Nicholas Ray and Gloria Grahame, which leads on up to there next and very telling collaboration on In A Lonely Place (1950).

A Woman’s Secret is not yet available domestically on DVD. You can hunt down a rare and out-of-print VHS tape on E-bay or snag a Region 2 DVD online if you can handle PAL. Or, of course, you can simply watch it this Thursday, August 13th on TCM.

For Frank Miller’s article click here:

http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=99371&rss=mrqe

For Cullen Galagher’s article click here:

http://cinema-journal.blogspot.com/2008/08/womans-secret-1949.html