Something Weird strayed from its Prime Directive (of seeking out what Michael Weldon once christened "psychotronic cinema") by releasing on video this very square, old-fashioned German rom-com made for the local mass market by a top director pre-NGC: Alfred Weidenmann.
In a career dating back to work during the Nazi era, Weidenmann is best known for big-budget projects including a 2-part adaptation of Thomas Mann's "Buddenbrooks". Yet "Only a Woman" displays versatility on his part, with a light and fluffy comedy that could easily have starred Doris Day during her hey-Day.
Schell plays a beautiful psychotherapist, duped by hero (in the John Gavin role) Paul Hubschmidt as a fashion photographer who pretends to be her patient, only to get back at her for a perceived wrong.
The duo's romantic sparring is quite familiar from a hundred films, and the rom-com clichés were executed far better in the '40s by stars like Claudette Colbert and Charles Boyer. But Schell gets some attractive costumes and brings her trademark warmth to the role, making the adequately dubbed into English film watchable. Script's mocking of modern society (circa mid-20th Century, I guess making our era post- Modern) and psychoanalysis gives the show what little depth it can muster.
In a career dating back to work during the Nazi era, Weidenmann is best known for big-budget projects including a 2-part adaptation of Thomas Mann's "Buddenbrooks". Yet "Only a Woman" displays versatility on his part, with a light and fluffy comedy that could easily have starred Doris Day during her hey-Day.
Schell plays a beautiful psychotherapist, duped by hero (in the John Gavin role) Paul Hubschmidt as a fashion photographer who pretends to be her patient, only to get back at her for a perceived wrong.
The duo's romantic sparring is quite familiar from a hundred films, and the rom-com clichés were executed far better in the '40s by stars like Claudette Colbert and Charles Boyer. But Schell gets some attractive costumes and brings her trademark warmth to the role, making the adequately dubbed into English film watchable. Script's mocking of modern society (circa mid-20th Century, I guess making our era post- Modern) and psychoanalysis gives the show what little depth it can muster.
