June Allyson steps way out of type for this bravura acting effort. It is a psychological study of a playwright (Jose Ferrer) slowly sinking into depression and attempting suicide unsuccessfully. Allyson plays his loving but demanding wife. It is very clinical and grimly realistic. Allyson is magnificent and 100% believable as the domineering wife who comes close to loving her man to death. Ferrer is very good as the brooding playwright who comes apart at the seams under the pressure he buys into. Edward Platt is very good as Ferrer's brother. Only Joy Page is a tad unbelievable as Ferrer's ultra-sympathetic would-be paramour. Altogether, I rate it 9/10.
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aromatic-231 August 2001
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JohnHowardReid4 October 2016Playwright Joseph Kramm was married to Isabel Bonner — some critics allege that she was the inspiration for the shrike — who made her film debut here. It turned out to be her only movie, although she did make four earlier appearances on TV. She died before the movie's release. First credited movie role for Edward Platt, who went on to become a well-known character actor in film and television. And the last of two films for Joe Comadore. First was the 1954 Tanganyika. He also made one appearance on TV in 1955. And last piece of information, but not least, this was the movie directorial debut of José Ferrer.
Yet, despite its credentials, "The Shrike" is a movie that seems to have disappeared. Despite its availability, it has rarely been played on television. Not even when it met TV's only criteria of eligibility — the fact that it was relatively new. (Never mind that Ferrer's close-up followed by more close-ups directorial style is ideally suited to TV).
For movie fans, the fact that the play won the Pulitzer Prize (and that it was translated to the screen with its original producer/director and most of its original Broadway cast) would seem reason enough to anticipate many TV airings. What do we get? Virtually none! Compare the constant broadcasts of other Pulitzer winners such as Harvey (1945), State of the Union (1946), A Streetcar Named Desire (1948), Death of a Salesman (1949), South Pacific (1950), Picnic (1953), Teahouse of the August Moon (1954), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). (No plays were considered worthy enough to receive the Prize in 1944, 1947 and 1951). And I rate June Allyson, brilliantly cast against type here, as giving by far the best performance of her career. -
churei2 August 2006On Broadway, the Kramm play did have a more downbeat ending in that it is clear that there is no way for the two to ever live together again. BUT the ending, in the film, is essentially the same. No matter how much the wife, so brilliantly essayed by June Allyson, professes a change in her makeup, and no matter how they look walking hand-in-hand down the street, there is NO DOUBT that only further problems await this couple. There is definitely a cloud of doom over the whole thing, and even their steps are hesitant providing a clue to the future. Jose Ferrer chose Allyson for this film, and he was so right despite her feelings over the years that he may not have been. There should have been awards for her in The Shrike. (She had won honors for comedic turns in other films, including Too Young To Kiss, which pales in comparison to her work here). Her recent death only makes it sadder that her skills as an actress were never totallya realized by Hollywood. Her comedic and musical skills are evident in many films, but her serious work (The Secret Heart, for example) deserve to be studied again.
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planktonrules23 July 2018Before the ending to "The Shrike", I loved the film. José Ferrer, as usual, turned in a great performance and the story was very unusual and kept my interest. It's so sad, then, that the original and more downbeat ending was replaced with a ridiculous upbeat ending.
The story begins with a Broadway director, Jim Downs (Ferrer), is brought into the psychiatric emergency room. He'd just attempted suicide and they plan on keeping him for some time. Why he did it isn't exactly clear at the beginning of the film but over time you learn that his manipulative wife has a part in this. The problem now is that he cannot get out of the place without her help...and she doesn't exactly seem eager to let him out unless it's on her terms.
According to IMDB, June Allyson wanted to play a grittier role, but the studio execs got nervous when preview audiences couldn't accept the actress in a role where she isn't sweet. So, although the story is supposed to be about a harpy of a woman, inexplicably, the film walks back on this at the end...and ending that just doesn't ring true and undoes so much good in the movie. -
sophieoscarcat13 December 2007I saw this film in its original release in Hollywood and have never forgotten June Allyson's shrew of a wife and how she kept putting the psychological knife in her poor, emotionally wasted husband, played by Jose Ferrer. I was too young to know why a wife would do this but the effect has never left me. This film deserves a beautifully restored DVD presentation. June Allyson deserved an Oscar nomination and perhaps the award given the fact that she made a 180 turn against her long established type. Ms. Allyson would only make three more Hollywood films and then escape into television with her own series and then guest host and star in her husband, Dick Powell's, weekly anthology series. She proved her dramatic mettle over and over on television and lived out a serene, much respected retirement in California's wine country near Clint Eastwood's place. Those in Ojai, according to what one resident told me, would see Ms. Allyson in town and about and always gave her the respect of admired distance, yet with warmth. I loved June Allyson, still a handsome beauty to the end.
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tomtac13 July 2006I saw this movie after I had been married for a while, and have thought about it a .lot. in the decades since. Why, you ask? I understand that so much of it, even the ending, will ring true for a certain type of person. And for others, it may seem unbelievable.
But love is not the wonderful live-happily-ever-after kind of thing that Hollywood loved to show in the old times. Love hurts, love drives you crazy, love makes you miserable sometimes.
Among your group of married people you know, there may easily be people who are trying frantically to extricate themselves from their relationship, or tragically and pathetically dream about it. If you discover who they are, ask .them. to see the movie or play and tell you what they think.
As Ferrer wanders through a doorway, beginning to move from "sad" to "crying" to "blubbering", it may seem over the top. Beware, you are just too used to what Hollywood and Broadway have been feeding you. Consider, instead, that this could indeed happen just this way in real life. This is a truly realistic movie. -
bkoganbing27 September 2020The Shrike was quite an eye opener for me seeing it for the very first time. It further confirmed my own opinion of the almost limitless talents of Jose Ferrer.
The roles associated with Ferrer, what he's best known for are such bravura performances as Cyrano DeBergerac and Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge. His role in The Shrike is subdued and Ferrer conveys a great performance by use of his body language and facial expressions. Ferrer plays a theatrical director who makes a suicide attempt and is now in a psych ward and trying to get out.
Ferrer directed and starred on Broadway for 161 performances in the 1952 season. He did the same for the screen and wrote the background music for the film.
A lot of the cast came over from Broadway. One addition was June Allyson who was Hollywood's all American wife and sweetheart. She wanted to play a bad girl and I think she was cast in the part because to the outside world the wife is June Allyson, not the demanding woman Ferrer is married to. The public did not want to see June Allyson as she is here.
The scenes that are the best are in the sanitarium. Straight out of The Snake Pit, this film borrowed a lot from that classic.
Definitely a must for Jose Ferrer aficionados. -
vokoban28 August 2007June Allyson is really good in this movie but Isabel Bonner should be given some credit also. Especially when she was married to the writer and died playing her part. I wonder how much time went by between filming the movie and her death.
(July 2, 1955) ACTRESS DROPS DEAD ON CARTHAY CIRCLE STAGE The final curtain fell on the Carthay Circle Theater stage last night for Isabel Bonner, New York stage and television actress, who collapsed and died as she played a hospital bed scene with Actor Dane Clarck in "The Shrike." Miss Bonner, 47, who in private life is the wife of Joseph Kramm, author of "The Shrike," was seated by the bedside of Clark when she suddenly fell forward with her head down on the spread. -
admacd16 October 2005I saw the movie about 50 years ago. A friend of mine, who had seen the play on Broadway, told me that his mother and her bridge club had journeyed from New Jersey to NYC to see it in a matinée performance, and she told him, as I remember, "We girls found it one-sided." My friend was a full fledged alcoholic by the age of twenty. He found the movie too true to be good, if I may put it so.
I loved June Alyson ever since I had seen her in Singing in the Rain and the movie, the Shrike, has always stayed with me, in part because I found it puzzling the one time I saw it. I would really like to see it again; only the passage of time leads me to give it a "9" rather than a "10".
Many strong images from the film remain in my memory: the squalid 12 x 6 hotel room lit by a bare bulb hanging like fly paper from the ceiling in which the attempted suicide took place; the impassive face of the psychiatrist listening to the wife's (shrike's) analysis of her husband; her shock when the shrink asks her whether she has sought therapeutic help for herself; and some other moments, too.
It may be one of the great movies. It seems to have been lost to memory. How can I get to see it again? -
A stage director and an aspiring actress find romance working together, until he becomes a solo success and she quickly morphs into a jealous, domineering python. José Ferrer directed and stars in this rather inefficient and artificial soap opera, adapted from Joseph A. Kramm's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. The dramatic thrust of the flashback-oriented material seems to be absent: all we have to look forward to is the shattering of the man's self-confidence by his over-controlling spouse. June Allyson campaigned for the role of the villainous wife; she does a commendable job, but she's a hard worker here rather than a convincingly cast actress. After preview audiences disapproved of the tough original ending, it was softened to appease Allyson's fans. Nifty titles design by Saul Bass. ** from ****
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mark.waltz7 December 2022The passive/aggressive performance of June Allyson is top notch, a far cry from the goody goody Peter Pan collar wives she played throughout the 1940s and 50s, ending with the series of remakes of classic films from decades earlier. This is by far her greatest ambition, one that unfortunately flopped at the time, but has stood the test of time due to the nuances people probably didn't see in the 1950's but thanks to studies being released on psychiatric behavior, her performance is revealed to be something quite stunning. The film opens with husband Jose Ferrer being rushed to the hospital after a suicide attempt, swallowing pills and not really wanting to see his wife but asking for the name of another woman, Joy Page, whom he has met and fallen in love with in a way that is beyond his control.
As you get to know June's character, you can understand why Ferrer would take desperate ways to get out of the marriage, and you question the way she presents herself as an innocent party as things are revealed. People were shocked by Allyson switching gears at this point in her career, reminding me of Louis B. Mayer's quote in regards to his reaction to Greta Garbo in "Two-Faced Woman": "It's as shocking as seeing your grandmother drunk." After 12 years as a star (having started as an ingenue), she had a reputation for certain types of characters, and as an actress, had every right to be bored with those parts. Her character really builds in her machinations, and after a while, I began to really love to hate her. Of course, Jose Ferrer gives an excellent performance, and nobody would expect anything less from him, as his character truly gains all the sympathy while she gains all the hisses as developments in the plot are revealed.
An innocent looking little bird with a sharp beak is how a strike is described, and certainly that describes Allyson to a tea. There are some very interesting supporting characters as well, such as those surrounding Ferrer in his theatrical career on and off the stage, as well as the doctors, nurses and other patients in the hospital. So it's about much more than just a manipulative woman being exposed. The mid 1950's had a lot of social drama is dealing with mental illness and addiction and other issues, and this is surprisingly much better than what I had thought it would be based on reading up on it. It was a tough year for leading actors and actresses, and the stars of this film are certainly deserving of much more acknowledgment than they got. It's a very tough film to watch because it's a very tough subject to watch as entertainment, a bit dated in some ways, but still potent, and a film which Allyson can be proud of in spite of critical and public reaction at the time. -
adverts17 February 2004A decent film ruined by a totally unbelievable ending. The final 2 minute scene went against everything I'd been viewing for the previous 90 minutes. I allow a wide berth in films, especially older ones, for unrealistic situations, characters, coincidences.....but I'm not sure if I've even seen anything like this. Judge for yourself.
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JasparLamarCrabb29 September 2014José Ferrer directs and stars in this film version of the Pulitzer Prize winning play. He's a stage director who finds himself under the control of a wildly passive aggressive wife (a very unlikely cast June Allyson). Way past hen- pecked, Ferrer is run into a mental hospital by his harridan wife. Directing with the camera nearly ALWAYS on himself, Ferrer shows little talent in that department. In front of the camera, he hams it up as always. There's nary a true note in his performance. Allyson, on the other hand, is surprisingly effective in her only bad-girl role. It's a shame that the ending had to be re-shot so that audiences of the day would not go away hating her. Edward C. Platt plays Ferrer's realistic brother and Mary Hayley Bell is a very bossy nurse. Joy Page is in it too. The clever title design is by Saul Bass.
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HotToastyRag3 April 2023Does anyone want to see June Allyson as the bad guy? I was very excited to see America's Sweetheart wear a different hat, especially since I don't normally like her. José Ferrer starred and directed The Shrike, an intense and intimate drama that starts with marital difficulties. In the opening scene, Joe has just attempted suicide and his wife lets the hospital put him in the mental ward. Yes, this is a heavy movie.
There are all the classic elements of a "cuckoo's nest" movie: the unreasonable nurse, the violent inmates, the hallucinating inmates, the unfair release board interviews, and the frightening realization that the protagonist might just stay there until he's actually driven mad and belongs there. In one fantastic scene, Joe is being questioned by the "parole board". He's so nervous because he wants to be released. You can see every thought flitting through his head as he stalls for time before answering their questions. He wants to appear normal yet changed and humbled, he doesn't want them to think he needs more time to learn more lessons, he doesn't want to answer too quickly or too slowly, and he knows one wrong word can prevent his release.
Why did he attempt suicide in the first place, if he's married to the supportive and loving June Allyson? Why does he murmur the name "Charlotte" in his sleep? Through flashbacks, we see his life from years earlier to the present state. We understand how he made a drastic, and innocent enough at the start, mistake with June, and we hope desperately alongside him that he can get released from all his shackles. Try to find a copy of this obscure movie if you want to feel a bit uncomfortable this evening. And don't hold the ending against it. Obviously, you won't find any spoilers here, but just know that the ending had to be changed (much to the director's chagrin) to suit the studio. -
ulicknormanowen16 March 2021First film directed by highly talented actor Jose ferrer ,who would direct his own version of the Dreyfus affair,long before Roman Polanski .
His portrayal of a failed playwright is thoroughly convincing : confined to a mental hospital after nearly taking his own live, he remembers his past ,his wife who dominated him , who treated him like a grown up kid , urging him to give up on his writer's job for a place in her father's business.Ill at ease with the other inmates , he sometimes wonders if it's not a wrongful confinement .June Allyson,cast against type, is not bad as a selfish wife who finally realizes she may need a shrink too .An over possessive woman ,she fears her husband may leave her for an actress ,Charlotte: in fact she does not see this thespian is a way for the writer to assert himself as a man.It's perhaps too bad that the ending should have been sweetened ;but do not miss Ferrer's excellent performance.