Three Secrets

I wasn't sure at first, but the three ladies, especially Patricia Neal, made it a dynamic drama of troubled life and motherhood as they all await to see if the kid that survived the crash was their secret kid. Robert Wise directed a well-paced drama that only grew more interesting as it went on. It hooked me.

This admittedly far-fetched premise sets up a pretty compelling little melodrama as we learn each woman's back story in flashback. The three very different stories are fairly honest portrayals of the kinds of reasons that women have for having children outside of marriage, and while staying inside the confines of the production code, moralizing is kept to a minimum. Neal turns in the most compelling performance (and her story is the most interesting), but all three are good.