Main Cast: Rod Steiger, Diana Dors, Tom Tryon, Marie Windsor
Release Year: 1957
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
Plot
In this crime thriller a young woman marries a wealthy vintner. Soon afterward, she falls in love with a handsome rodeo rider whom she sees every time her husband is away. One night, her mother-in-law spots a burglar outside the house and reports it to the police. The conniving wife sees a window of opportunity and plots the death of her husband, hoping to blame it on the burglar. Unfortunately, she accidentally murders her husband's friend. Fortunately, she is able to con her husband into taking the rap with the promise that he will be acquitted. During the trial, she lies and he is put away. Later she gets hers when her mother-in-law is poisoned and she is convicted of the crime. The irony of it all is that the wife is innocent of that crime. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Review
Filmed in deliciously lurid Technicolor, The Unholy Wife is a frustrating noir exercise that should have been much better than it is. The plot is convoluted and unconvincing, but there have been worse plots in better movies; the basic premise is strong enough that, in other hands, Wife might have made it into the upper echelons of noir-dom. Unfortunately, the dialogue isn't strong enough to make up for plot deficiencies, nor are the characters, despite a few nice touches here and there, compelling enough to compensate. What is interesting in the script is the set-up: In traditional noir, Diana Dors would be the femme fatale who tricks Rod Steiger into marriage and his doom. In Wife, it turns out that Steiger has tricked Dors, for it turns out that a "war wound" prevents him from having children and his hidden reason for marrying Dors, who already has a child, was to have a ready-made heir for his business. Seen in this light, Dors' character becomes more sympathetic, and her actions more understandable. Unfortunately, neither writer Jonathan Latimer nor director John Farrow does much with this potentially interesting twist. Nor, for that matter, do Dors and Steiger. Dors looks incredibly fetching, but her performance is only so-so, and Steiger is all over the place, throwing his talent in all directions and seeing if anything sticks. Even with these flaws, there's enough to Wife to make it worth a look, especially if you are a crime thriller aficionado. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
The film begins with Phyllis (Diana Dors) telling her story in flashbacks. It begins how she meets rich vinter 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, seeing him every time her husband is away, which is frequently. One night, Phyllis' 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 Phyllis 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 get 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.
The film has received mixed reviews. Dennis Schwartz at the "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" web site called the film, "A ponderous melodrama that even becomes more awkward by the film's end."[2]
