Movie review - "They Were Sisters" (1945) **

Ab odd-one-out amongst Gainsborough melodrama because it seems so modern (Madonna of the Seven Moons was set in the 1930s but it felt 19th century). It also lacks star power (despite the presence of James Mason in excellent villainous form), interesting costumes and production design, and excitement. It's not very good.

There are three sisters: whimp Dulcie Grey who marries caddish James Mason and becomes a boozer; dull Phyllis Calvert who married even duller Peter Murray Smith (possibly the wettest leading man in British film history - surely the armed services hadn't enlisted all the vaguely virile-seeming leading man); slutty Anne Crawford who marries a dull husband (Barrie Livesy) but wants to cheat with Hugh Sinclair.

Calvert is ideal in her bland part but Grey and Crawford don't have the charisma and familiarity of Margaret Lockwood, Pat Roc and Jean Kent (part of the fun of these films was being reunited with the same actors). Some of the acting from the kids is dreadful - same for the acting of the adults. I can't recall a blander collecting of male stars than Smith, Livesy, Sinclair and even the young kids - Mason is the only one with balls. None of the girls have that much spirit either.

It's dull, without any sense of energy or pace - it goes for almost two hours. It was popular, though, with the female audience no doubt enjoying differing female characters (dull, slut, victim). There is some good melodrama, such as Mason offering Calvert his kids if she supports him in court; Grey going bonkers with booze and oppression - but not enough of it.

It is sociologically fascinating, like most of these sort of films: Calvert talking at the end about all the people like this, the fact that Crawford is allowed to cheat on her husband and run off to South Africa with her lover, leaving her daughter behind with her sister and not be punished (she is said to miss her daughter in a letter at the very end but we've never gotten the sense she likes her). But you'd be much better off watching The Man in Grey or The Wicked Lady instead.