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Richardson is the wheelchair-bound scourge of his family, hated by his nephew Connery, and nursed by Lollobrigida. Connery hatches a scheme to inherit the old man's money by marrying him off to La Lollo, but of course it goes rather awry, with Richardson getting bumped off earlier than expected. Despite good performances from the three stars, and a plot whose convolutions keep you awake, Dearden treats it rather timidly, afraid to go for the dramatic jugular.

Excerpt from TimeOut Film Guide located HERE

One reason Sean Connery made the transition from sexy movie icon to beloved movie icon is that he almost always played the good guy. But there are exceptions. In Woman of Straw (1964), playing the calculating nephew of Ralph Richardson's rich old wheelchair-bound monster, he schemes with Gina Lollobrigida to murder the old boy. Connery filmed it just after the first two Bond films Dr. No (1962) and From Russia with Love (1963). But not for his oft-stated wish to avoid being typecast as Bond. It was for a simpler reason. Connery smarted at being paid only $6000 for the first Bond film, which neither he nor many others foresaw would become the franchise and cash cow it remains to this day. He remained bitter over his meager Bond payoffs for decades. But Bond did catapult Connery into international sexy tough guy stardom, and Woman of Straw earned him his first million-dollar paycheck.

Taken from Catherine Arley's French novel, La Femme de Paille, it's very post-Agatha Christie, with a scorpion's-tail twist. Watching it today is like time travel to a microcosm that exists as its own hermetically-sealed universe, much like those well-made but thoroughly musty stage constructs that one could almost always depend on encountering in the playhouses of London's West End. It's thinly populated by stock characters, yet enjoyable all the same, partly for its sense of sturdy, knowing craftsmanship, partly for the ways the actors inhabit their stereotypes. There also are entertaining bonuses in the interactions. Never for a moment do we believe in the sexual byplay between Connery's villain and Lollobrigida's nurse, hired, as she later learns, to facilitate the nephew's murder plot. Far from projecting sexual chemistry, the two leads seem matter and anti-matter.

Gary Tooze

March 20th, 2015