Movie Review: The Three Faces Of Eve (1957)

A drama about multiple personality disorder, The Three Faces of Eve is a straightforward but nevertheless gripping story of mental trauma.

In suburban Georgia, housewife Eve White (Joanne Woodward) is the meek, submissive, and relatively unhappy wife of Ralph (David Wayne) and mother to young Bonnie. Eve experiences headache and blackout episodes, during which her behaviour changes. Psychiatrist Doctor Curtis Luther (Lee J. Cobb) with help from his associate Doctor Francis Day (Edwin Jerome) start treating Eve, and soon meet her second personality, who calls herself Eve Black. She is confident, playful, flirtatious, cannot stand Ralph and refuses to acknowledge Bonnie as her daughter.

Eve is hospitalized, her relationship with Ralph suffers, and Luther attempts to help them both understand her multiple personality disorder. But Ralph struggles to cope with his wife's condition, and Eve's situation takes another twist when a third personality, Jane, suddenly emerges.

Based on a true story and somberly narrated by Alastair Cooke, The Three Faces Of Eve is methodical storytelling enriched by a tremendous Joanne Woodward performance. Written and directed by Nunnally Johnson, the film is almost deferential towards both the emerging practice of psychiatry and Eve as a remarkable and relatively rare patient experiencing triple personalities.

What could have been an almost documentary-like recreation of factual events is elevated by Woodward delivering an unforgettable performance, convincingly transitioning between Eve's three personalities in a display of stunning virtuosity. The docile Eve White and the provocative Eve Black are completely different women in the same body, and Woodward brings them both to authentic life, often transitioning in seconds.

Jane is a stable middle ground, and in many ways the easiest of the three personalities to portray. By the time she emerges Dr. Luther is on his way to devising a treatment plan consisting of encouraging one personality to dominate, and Jane provides the most logical compromise. The late unleashing of repressed childhood memories adds a suitably bold exclamation point to the drama.

Johnson gives Eve Black free reign to contribute the juiciest episodes. She thrives on sexually enticing any and every man she encounters, including, perversely, the Ralph she despises but not enough to overcome her seduction instincts. Eve Black is also a danger to Bonnie, but loves life enough to intervene when Mrs. White's depression reaches a crisis point.

In a compact 90 minutes three different faces are revealed within a single extraordinary woman, and one actress shines with an extraordinary accomplishment.

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Movie Review: With A Song In My Heart (1952)

A musical biography of wartime singer Jane Froman, With A Song In My Heart sprinkles a little bit of story with a whole lot of songs. Susan Hayward in the lead role and Froman's actual singing voice ensure a reasonable level of enjoyment.

In the late 1930s, unknown singer Jane Froman (Hayward) is discovered by small-time music writer Don Ross (David Wayne) when he helps her to prepare for a radio audition. With assistance from Ross, Froman's career takes off, and she is soon propelled to the front ranks of stage performers and recording artists. After a lot of prodding, she agrees to marry Ross. But his songwriting career is going nowhere, and the inevitable jealousies creep into the relationship.

With World War Two raging, Froman heads out on a tour to entertain the troops. Tragedy strikes when her plane crashes off the coast of Lisbon, with many of the passengers losing their life. Froman survives, but one of her legs is severely damaged. During a long recovery phase, Froman falls in love with Captain John Burn (Rory Calhoun), a fellow survivor of the crash. She also establishes a deep friendship with nurse Clancy (Thelma Ritter). Once she recovers sufficiently, and despite her mobility challenges, Froman heads back out on a triumphant tour to raise the morale of America's fighting men.

A solid two thirds of With A Song In My Heart is occupied with performances of Froman's songs. In various settings, the radiant Hayward is excellent at emoting, and Froman's deep and distinctive voice shines. The film carries around 17 songs, not counting another 10 that feature in a climactic medley celebrating the good old U.S. of A. For fans of Froman's voice and music, the film delivers.

As a dramatic experience, the remaining 40 minutes or so of narrative development are adequate at recounting the story of Froman's rise from obscurity to stardom, the struggle to overcome debilitating injuries, and her comeback as a performer who uniquely understood the scars of men wounded in the line of duty. The film is narrated by Wayne, Calhoun and Ritter, and therein lies its nagging weakness: this is Froman as superficially seen through the eyes of others, and director Walter Lang, working from a script by Lamar Trotti, never comes close to delving into her essence. The film offers nothing about Froman's background, motivation, values, or inner thoughts.

Wayne and Calhoun provide relatively low-key support as the two men in Froman's life, while Ritter offers some of the film's best moments, and crackles as the nurse who became a key friend and companion. Both Ritter and Hayward earned Academy Award nominations. Robert Wagner has a small but memorable role as a paratrooper entertained by Froman first in the United States, and then under very different circumstances in Europe.

With A Song In My Heart is first a celebration of music and then a sketched story of a life. More a concert show than a drama, it nevertheless soldiers on, powered by the fuel of good intentions.

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