Woman of Straw

Gina Lollobrigida died early last year, and TCM ran a programming tribute to her in May. They ran a bunch of movies I hadn't seen before, so I recorded quite a lot to get through. Next up from the Lollobrigida tribute is Woman of Straw.

Ralph Richardson plays Charles Richmond, a fairly nasty man, but one who did well in the business world and lives in a big manor house someplace not too far from London. He treats everybody around him badly, including his nephew Anthony (Sean Connery). But Charles has a bad heart and requires a live-in nurse. His nasty personality has driven off a bunch of nurses, and Anthony is bringing in another one on a trial. This one is a foreigner, Maria Marcello (Gina Lollobrigida).

Charles is a widower with no children of his own, and Anthony has done the best he can managing his uncle's business affairs despite Charles thinking Anthony is no good. To that end, Charles has only left a paltry portion of his eight-figure fortune to Anthony in his will. Anthony chafes at that, and would like to inherit more of his uncle's estate, but how to get at that money? Anthony has an idea, and it's part of why he brought in the beautiful Maria to try to be Charles' nurse.

If Charles only has his nephew, he can dispose of the estate pretty much however he sees fit. But if he has a wife, British inheritance law will make certain the widow gets some of the estate. So Anthony wants Maria to marry Charles, which should only be a relatively short marriage since he's in apparently poor health. Anthony will get Maria to agree to marry Charles and get Charles to change the will such that Maria will inherit everything. Maria will then agree to give Anthony £1 million out of that fortune.

Maria, despite having walked out on Charles already, eventually agrees to the deal! She returns to the estate, and sets about getting Charles to fall in love with her so that he'll propose marriage. That, and get Charles ready to go on his luxurious private yacht on a cruise to the Mediterranean. And wouldn't you know it, but on that cruise Charles eventually does propose marriage to Maria, and then does write a new will on Mallorca.

However, there's one catch, which is that the will apparently needs to be registered in the UK to be valid under UK law. And Anthony is worried that his uncle won't survive long enough for them to get to dry land and Charles' solicitors to have the will registered. Sure enough, the morning that they're supposed to dock, Charles is found dead in his stateroom on the yacht. So Charles comes up with a ridiculous plan to presage Weekend at Bernie's and fool everyone for one day that Charles is still alive.

Things start to go south, however, when it's determined how Charles died. And then there's the question of whether anyone saw through the ruse about Charles' being alive until they got him home. Worse for Maria is that her story and Anthony's are really not agreeing....

Woman of Straw is, to me, very much a product of the 1960s, in that it feels like it's trying to keep up with the changing times, but at the same time there's somethign decidedly old-fashioned about it. The first half of the movie is rather slow to develop, and then once Charles dies the story veers in ways that are both unpredictable and credulity-straining.

Still, all three leads give entertaining performances and just about make the story work in spite of all the things that shouldn't make sense. It's not the best movie any of the three leads made, but it's still definitely worth one watch.