ianlouisiana Review of The Gentle Sex

The Gentle Sex (1943)

Soporific propaganda movie with nothing to recommend it.

[3/10 · 25 October 2009]

Originally titled "We're not weeping",the script for this movie was handed over to Gerald Kersh as Leslie Howard thought it too feminine as it stood.After Kersh's re-write Mr Howard then considered it to be too masculine so he returned it to the first writer,Miss M.Charles who restored it to her original vision which,hardly surprisingly was again too feminine for the director who re - engaged Kersh who,in turn changed it back to the way he had re - written it in the first place.Reading it,Howard decided to hand it back to Miss Charles to feminise some of the dialogue and at this stage Mr Kersh,serving in the Coldstream Guards at the time,lost interest in the whole thing.It is not to be wondered at that he did not have a particularly high opinion of Howard and steered clear of the British Film Industry for some years before Jules Dassin directed his great novel "Night and the city" with Richard Widmark. What eventually turned out to be "The Gentle sex" was a soporific propaganda movie with nothing to recommend it,directed,if that's not too strong a word,by Leslie Howard and aimed squarely at recruiting women for the A.T.S. Made at a time when when the liberation of women meant opening the gates of Holloway Prison it deals very mildly with potentially huge issues. The largely female cast all speak rather nicely - even the token cockney - and turn out to be dab hands at driving lorries and roadside repairs. The men are all knuckle - headed and quite frankly it's a surprise we ended up winning the war. There is an irritating and patronising voice - over by Mr Howard that adds absolutely nothing to the picture. I'm sorry to be so negative about a movie that was was probably made under all sorts of difficulties.Perhaps Mr Howard should have taken Baden - Powell's advice and whistled instead.