StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

deschreiber Somebody misled me into watching this little time-waster. A woman is murdered. Whodunit? Was it her sister? The man who spurned her? The man she spurned? Who cares? There's not a single character in the film that you care about, nobody's interesting, there's not a trace of suspense, it's just an empty exercise in figuring out who the murderer is (yawn). In the end, the secret is revealed in a tiny clue, and the story is put to bed in the dullest denouement I can remember. They try to pump a little interest into this hackneyed old mystery by portraying most of the story in flashbacks and showing the victim while alive as having a different nature according to how various people saw her. Nice try, but it's not enough to save the film. Any comparison to Rashomon is ridiculous. You won't hate this film, but you'll be lucky to stay awake to the end.

sol ***SPOILERS*** Clever Rashomon-like British film involving fortune-teller Madam Aster who was found strangled in her flat in an obvious crime of passion by someone she may not have been that passionate with.With policemen Supt. Lodge and his partner Inspt. Butler called on the scene they check out all the clues to Madam Aster's murder and come up with five suspects. As the movie goes on we get statements, and flashbacks, from the five suspects in Madam Aster's murder that all contradict each other. It becomes very apparent to both Lodge & Butler that Madam Aster had deeply offended everyone of the five persons suspected of murdering her. The trick is who of those that she offended was driven to the point of killing her! There's Madam Aster's landlady, and suspect #1, Mrs Finch who didn't like the company that she kept in her apartment that included, suspect# 2, double-talking BS artist and carnival mind reader Bob Baker. It was Baker who left Madam Aster for her far more attractive sister, and suspect #3, Catherine Taylor after she threw him out of her apartment! We, as well as Supt. Lodge & Inspt. Butler, can't leave out the kindly neighborhood "Mr. Fix It All", and suspect #4, Albert Pollard. The meek and always available Pollard was always trying to get the much younger Madam Aster to fall for him and, with both Pollard and Madam Aster still married, become his sex slave or live-in lover. All that the frustrated Pollard ever got from her, for his noble and unselfish services, was nothing more then a handshake smile and thank you!And finally we come to the insanely jealous rummy and bar-room brawler, as well as suspect #5, Sailor Mike Murray who wherever he went violence always followed. Sailor Mike went nuts when he showed up unexpectedly at Madam Aster's apartment, after being out at sea for three months, and finding her with an other man! Throwing Madam Aster's boyfriend, or possible John, down a fight of stairs a fired up Sailor Mike then checked out and got himself juiced up in a local ginmill. With Sailor Mike coming on the scene after Madam Aster's body was discovered by the police was that his way to show that he was innocent of murdering her or him just playing ignorant in order to throw the police off his tail! ***SPOILERS*** It's Supt Lodge who finally cracks the case not by having the evidence lead him to Madam Aster's murderer but the murderer him or herself unknowingly doing the job for him!

JohnHowardReid Investigating the brutal murder of a fun-fair fortune teller, a detective encounters five different witnesses' accounts of her character.This ingenious noir thriller provides an opportunity for Jean Kent to give the stand-out performance of her career as the murder victim who is seen though different eyes throughout the narrative. Every critic in the world has pointed out this obvious fact, but very few have zeroed in on Susan Shaw who gives a far more subtle but nonetheless equally telling interpretation of the victim's sister as her part in the drama is also recalled by the various witnesses.Also handing out an astonishingly well-rounded performance is Dirk Bogarde who cleverly overdoes the bogus American accent in order to tip the audience off to his real persona. He fooled me completely.All the actors are well-nigh perfect. The only player I have any problem with is Duncan Macrae in the key role of Superintendent Lodge. To my mind, Macrae lacks the charisma for this important part and I would have much preferred to see Duncan Lamont, a fine actor, who does wonders with his small and inconsequential role as a direction finder at the fun fair.Asquith has handled his players well, although I thought that a little more ingenuity in camera angles would have made the film even more noirishly appealing.

Dierdre99 Made the same year - 1950 - as Rashomon which is acclaimed for retelling the same story several ways, The Woman in Question does the very same, allowing Jean Kent to portray five rather different versions of Astra, the fortune teller. The women in the film are much better drawn than the men, despite both the director and writer being themselves men, and despite the narrative framework of the all-male police team. Some would attribute this to Asquith's gay perspective. The combined portrait of Astra is not very flattering, especially her refusal to visit her dying husband, and in her using Pollard, the pet-shop keeper, to work for her for free, but then refusing his polite advances, she is walking a dangerous line. The underlying sadness of her person comes through, but she is not as sad as Pollard.The outstanding secondary character is Mrs Finch, the nosey neighbour from next door who never stops talking. Hermione Baddeley, in the part, practically steals the first part of the film to the extent that the rest almost seems like an anticlimax. Her characterization, her way of speech, the hairnet and the pinafore, owe a lot to the English tradition of comical working-class characters that goes back to renaissance theatre, was developed in the Music Hall, and is a precursor of the Monty-Python housewives chatting over the back fence. That is, it is very easy to see her as done by Dan Leno or Al Reid. A change of emphasis and we have a drag routine.