Three Secrets (1950)

Three Secrets (1950), directed by Robert Wise.

When the sole survivor of a plane crash is a little boy stuck on a mountain ledge, three women discover that he may be the child each gave up for adoption. As they assemble at the remote lodge to watch the rescue effort, we learn the back-story of each.

I review this one because of the people involved. The story is just ok, one of those melodramatic semi-weepies inspired by the sometimes cruel realities of human biology. The clunky dialogue of this type of picture hurts it: always explaining everything out loud. Maybe that comes from writing for radio?

But if you like the actresses, each gets good screen time:

Eleanor Parker loved a soldier who already had a girl back home. She now has a husband, but he doesn't know about the baby. She can't have more children. This is the actress they call in when the script specifies "pain and fear".

Patricia Neal is a wise-cracking, hard-driving reporter, one of the boys with the newshounds. She can't keep her husband because her job comes first. By the time she discovers she's pregnant, he has remarried, so she keeps it secret. She has a crooked smile and wins the cheekbone contest.

Ruth Roman is a dancer who killed the producer who dallied with her and abandoned her. She had her baby in prison. She's out now, hardened and drinking too much, but there is still a heart of gold in there.

Finally, I have to see everything Robert Wise directs. He doesn't get the notice of auteur directors like Hitchcock or Kubrick, but his craftsmanship is always worth studying.

Olive Films Blu-ray. Variable quality with some print damage. An occasional good hidef image. I rent all these Olive Blu-rays from ClassicFlix.