Very disappointed :(

Too many fans seem to be blown away

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Private eye George Maharis is hired by wealthy Peter Lawford to find out all he can about future wife Carroll Baker (a poetess with a very mystery bio). Maharis finds a slew of lurid details about Baker ranging from rape to prostitution to blackmail. Director Gordon Douglas and scriptwriter Sydney Boehm have Baker climb from a Dante's Inferno of nightmares before achieving respectability. Maharis encounters one loony character after another. There's blowzy Ann Sothern, sassy showgirl Nancy Kovack, sleazy Edmond O'Brien, and ex-prostitute Joanne Dru. Also in the mix is saintly librarian Vivica Lindfors and not so saintly transvestite pimp Paul Gilbert (as Lola Diamond). It's all fairly silly as opposed to compelling with Maharis making a dull leading man. Baker does not have the carriage to be particularly convincing as a poetess! There is a great music score by David Raskin and stellar cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg. Aldo Ray, Val Avery (as one of Baker's unlucky johns) and Lloyd Bochner (as a very brutal john) are in it too.

A private detective is hired by a wealthy man to see if there is any dirt on his fiancée before he marries her.There are some 60s socially relevant themes I could have done without-- a trickle compared to the fire hydrant we endure today. Appalachian Poverty Female-Female Friends etc...Would anyone be so deprived that they wouldn't know what a real flower was? Hard to believe.A couple plot flaws...after getting her face slashed Baker has a more perfect complexion than ever and gee! turning $10,000 into $70,000 is so easy if you know bankers.Then Maharis coming on to Baker...The end seems implausible = Miss Cold suddenly turned on by someone in a bookstore. No it doesn't work.I will grudgingly give it 4 stars--I don't like the socially meaningful genre--my God we get it in both ears 26 hours a day as it is. I watch movies for entertainment. They could have expunged the PC stuff and it would have been a 10 times better. But we are talking Hollywood PC-ness and moral nanny is in its DNA.

The filmic trope of presenting a mystery woman to the viewer through the recollections of her friends and lovers has a long history. Perhaps "Laura" is the most famous. A much lesser-known one is the British "Woman in Question." "Sylvia" is in that tradition: a wealthy man wants to find out about the background of his fiancée, Sylvia, so hires a private detective to investigate. As the P.I. encounters people from Sylvia's past, the stories that they tell him are the flashback elements of the film. There's a very touching episode with Viveca Lindfors, as well as one with Ann Sothern. While the film is somewhat desultory in its pacing, it's got some great folks-Edmund O'Brien, Joanne Dru, etc.--and a suitably disengaged performance from Carroll Baker in the title role. It actually works well for the character, who throughout a series of tawdry experiences has kept a part of herself removed and untouched. We also get to see a well-toned George Maharis with his pajama top off--another reason to catch the film if it ever shows up.David Raksin, who composed the score for "Laura," some twenty years earlier, provides a nice score for "Sylvia" (note the use of the waltz from William Wyler's "Carrie"--also a Paramount film-- in the scene at the restaurant with Sothern and Maharis).

This movie deserves a high rating because of the issues it addresses and the quality of acting. The cast is first rate. As a devotee of "Route 66" I idolized the role of Maharis. His character was the chief attraction of the series. In subsequent roles he did not achieve the aura that he had projected in the series. However, in this movie he plays a middle of the road detective to perfection. The issues discussed make this a movie that one can see over again without boredom. The supporting cast is a Who's Who of Hollywood of the era.