Woman in a Dressing Gown is a 1957 British drama film directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Yvonne Mitchell, Anthony Quayle, Sylvia Syms, and Carole Lesley.

[citation needed] Modern criticism has noted that it was more progressive in the field of gender politics than the British New Wave.

[citation needed] The Prestons are an apparently happy household made up of wife Amy, husband Jim and teenage son Brian, living in a cramped flat on a London housing estate.

On a Sunday morning Amy lovingly prepares Jim's cooked breakfast but he announces he has to work.

Thompson and Willis formed a company with Frank Godwin, and they did a deal with Robert Clark at Associated British.

[1] According to Godwin, Joan Miller, who was in the original TV play, was offered a role at Stratford and was unable to reprise her performance.

The director was presumably aiming at a mood of tragi-comedy; but continual over-emphasis pushes the comedy close to farce; and, consequently, there is difficulty in establishing the pathetic scenes.

Foolish, frowzy Amy is quite outside her range, and her fidgety gestures and character "business" cannot conceal her limitations.

Anthony Quayle is also cast against type, and it is to his credit that the dilemma of the weak, bewildered husband is transmitted with real compassion.

The facile ending, with its suggestion of "happy ever after", is in line with the compromising attitude of the film as a whole; and rings entirely false.

That just goes to show that the Germans have no idea either... From beginning to end the film is an incredible debauch of camera movements as complex as they are silly and meaningless.

"[12] Melanie Williams for the BFI Screenonline noted "an important reminder that postwar British realism did not begin with the New Wave, and that the 1950s were not devoid of socially engaged cinema, as is sometimes suggested.

Indeed, in the field of gender politics, one could argue that this film is considerably more progressive than the New Wave that superseded it, in its focus on the travails of a middle-aged housewife rather than those of a virile young man.

"[13] Leslie Halliwell said: "Classic British TV play adequately filmed but now rather dated and irritating.

Her portrayal of clinical depression is stunning in its depth and understanding, and director J Lee Thompson pulls no punches in his exploration of a partnership gone sour with the intrusion of a younger woman.