Two superb actors cast against type star in About Mrs. Leslie (1954), a bittersweet story of a boarding house owner reminiscing about her longtime secret love affair. Shirley Booth, a brilliant veteran stage actress, had just won a best actress Oscar® for her film debut as a slatternly, aging wife of an alcoholic failure in 1952's Come Back Little Sheba. Robert Ryan had been acting in films since 1940, including playing the romantic lead in the 1943 Ginger Rogers film Tender Comrade, but he did not get much critical attention until after World War II, when he began playing psychos such as a vicious anti-Semite in 1947's Crossfire, a sadistic cop in On Dangerous Ground (1951), and a schizophrenic handyman in Beware My Lovely (1952). The character of the industrialist whose pursuit of his career has left him isolated and lonely offered Ryan a chance to play a more sympathetic character, one more like himself--genial, intelligent, and a bit guarded.

In her long career, Booth had played a wide variety of roles onstage--drama, comedy, and everything in between--but was only known to film audiences as the self-described "old, fat and sloppy" Lola in Come Back Little Sheba. Booth was in her mid-fifties when she took on the role of Vivien Keeler, a sassy, outgoing New York nightclub singer in About Mrs. Leslie. She was perhaps too old to play the younger version of her character, and visibly too old for Ryan. But her warmth is infectious, and her wistfulness as the older, self-styled "Mrs. Leslie" is just right. It is totally believable that the aloof, regretful tycoon would be drawn to her. It's not passion you see between them, it's tenderness.

The creative team behindCome Back Little Sheba--Producer Hal Wallis, director Daniel Mann, and writer Ketti Frings--was also responsible for About Mrs. Leslie. Mann had directed Booth in the stage version of Sheba, and like Booth, he made his film debut with the movie version of that play. They faced a typical challenge of the era in adapting the book on which About Mrs. Leslie was based for the screen. In the story, the couple spends six weeks together in California each year. The Production Code would not allow an adulterous relationship to be portrayed frankly, so the first time the two vacation together, there is a scene when they arrive at the beach house that emphasizes they will be sleeping in separate bedrooms. But the publicity tagline for the film left no doubt about their relationship: "About Mrs. Leslie...and the man she never quite married." The film flopped, and was little seen after its initial release, but its fine performances and romantic longing have made it something of a cult favorite for those who have seen it.

As he aged into his rugged good looks and air of menace, Ryan was able to play a more varied assortment of nuanced roles. His final performance in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, released after his death in 1973, was one of his best, and earned him posthumous rave reviews. Of Booth, Ryan said "she seemed uncomfortable working in pictures." Apparently he was right. Booth appeared in only two more feature films, the drama Hot Spell, and Thornton Wilder's comedy The Matchmaker, both in 1958. She went back to the stage, and in 1961 began her long run as the busybody maid in the television series that made her a household name, Hazel. Those who only know her from that show will be surprised and delighted to discover the work of one of the great American actresses of the twentieth century.

Director: Daniel Mann
Producer: Hal Wallis
Screenplay: Ketti Frings, Hal Kanter, based on a novel by Viña Delmar
Cinematography: Ernest Lazlo
Editor: Warren Low
Costume Design: Edith Head
Art Direction: Hal Pereira, Earl Hedrick
Music: Victor Young
Principal Cast: Shirley Booth (Vivien Keeler, also known as Mrs. Leslie), Robert Ryan (George Leslie Hendersall), Marjie Millar (Nadine Roland), Alex Nicol (Lan McKay), Sammy White (Harry Willey), James Bell (Herb Poole), Philip Ober (Mort Finley), Eilene Janssen (Pixie Croffman), Henry Morgan (Herb Blue), Virginia Brissac (Mrs. Poole)
104 minutes

by Margarita Landazuri