Instant Favorite.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Both "Five Angles on Murder" and the Kurosawa film "Rashomon" came out the same year, so it's very possible that neither film influenced the other-- though they sure have a similar style. Both films consist of a mystery and you see the story through different folks' eyes...and they have extremely different views on exactly what ACTUALLY happened. Both are worth seeing, though by many "Rashomon" is considered a classic.When the film begins, a child finds a woman dead in her flat. Apparently she was murdered and the police interrogate several people to try to determine what happened. First is the landlady and her interview seems to dubious value as she seems to let her emotions color what she thinks of everyone. She LOVED the deceased and HATED her friend, Mr. Baker (Dirk Bogarde). When the police talk to the deceased's sister, she sees Baker very differently...as she was in love with him. She also thought her sister was a shrill and vicious woman. And so the movie goes...with the police interviewing different folks and all having a very different view of the dead woman as well as their opinions about who was responsible for her fate. Of all the folks in the film, Jean Kent really stands out as the victim. This is because she had to play such a different character depending on the viewpoint of the interviewee...ranging from almost sickly sweet and refined to coarse and god-awful! It takes talent to have such range! While I would never say the film is as good as the Kurosawa film, it IS very good and very well made...far better than most British pictures of the era.

THE WOMAN IN QUESTION is a British detective story of the 1950s and a little different to the rest, following an atypical plot structure, featuring some characters who are presented in a much more harsh and realistic light than is usual for the genre, and set in Brighton, although mostly this is a set-bound little thing.The film turns out to be nothing more than a blatant rip-off of Kurosawa's RASHOMON, with the events leading up to the murder of a young woman told by various different characters who each put their own spin on things. The main detective has to piece things together and work out who the real killer is, more by what's not being said than what is. It's an interesting premise in itself, but the writer is unable to sustain suspense for the entire running time, and in the second half this falls apart quite spectacularly with sub-plots that go nowhere and seem to have been included merely to pad out the narrative.It's a pity, as THE WOMAN IN QUESTION does have some good stuff amid the tedium. Jean Kent has the chance to play the victim in a number of different characterisations and is completely convincing in all of them. The stories which portray her in a less-than-flattering light are quite shocking and effective. Dirk Bogarde has a supporting role, but it's an obvious one that he can do little with. Hermione Baddeley's larger-than-life figure threatens to dominate proceedings early on but thankfully takes a back seat later in the game. The police procedural linking segments are quite dull and I found the ending a disappointment.

This film is a slightly below average detective movie which passes the time if you've nothing else to do. As with many similar black and white films of the era "The Woman in Question" offers an insight into post-war Britain, but it doesn't hold a candle to "Brighton Rock" which, like this film, also has a seaside setting.The story takes a while to get started, but Jean Kent is excellent as the murder victim as described to the police by different witnesses. Hermione Baddeley also does well in a dull and overlong role as neighbour Mrs Finch, whose son discovers the murder. There is a small twist right near the end, but it is hardly much of a surprise and the film ending is abrupt and disappointing. 5/10

Made the same year - 1950 - as Rashomon which is acclaimed for retelling the same story several ways, The Woman in Question does the very same, allowing Jean Kent to portray five rather different versions of Astra, the fortune teller. The women in the film are much better drawn than the men, despite both the director and writer being themselves men, and despite the narrative framework of the all-male police team. Some would attribute this to Asquith's gay perspective. The combined portrait of Astra is not very flattering, especially her refusal to visit her dying husband, and in her using Pollard, the pet-shop keeper, to work for her for free, but then refusing his polite advances, she is walking a dangerous line. The underlying sadness of her person comes through, but she is not as sad as Pollard.The outstanding secondary character is Mrs Finch, the nosey neighbour from next door who never stops talking. Hermione Baddeley, in the part, practically steals the first part of the film to the extent that the rest almost seems like an anticlimax. Her characterization, her way of speech, the hairnet and the pinafore, owe a lot to the English tradition of comical working-class characters that goes back to renaissance theatre, was developed in the Music Hall, and is a precursor of the Monty-Python housewives chatting over the back fence. That is, it is very easy to see her as done by Dan Leno or Al Reid. A change of emphasis and we have a drag routine.