Three Secrets (1950)

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A young boy is the sole survivor of a plane that went down in the mountains and a rescue mission of mountain-climbers are on their way to get him. The news flash reveals that today is his birthday and that he had been adopted through a certain agency. When Eleanor Parker hears this, she loses it, as she had given her baby up five years ago and that today would have been his birthday. She never told husband Leif Ericson. She hightails to the site where the press is stationed near the mountains. There she meets Patricia Neal and Ruth Roman, who both had used the same agency to give up their babies on the same day. Through the device of flashbacks, we are allowed the story of each and how each came to this point of their lives. This is excellent little film with great actresses for the lead roles, fleshing out the characters and making them three-dimensional. I grant you actresses like Bette Davis, Susan Hayward, and Joan Crawford has guts, but no one could quite deliver a line like Patricia Neal with her sarcastic coyness. And, Ruth Roman is one tough cookie, too. But the story is what really takes center stage with a taut pace and the outdoors being used to good advantage by the film's director. But who's baby is it? We are told, but there is more to it than any happy ending. The film reflects the struggles, loves, and yes secrets of three women, who were existing in a world and trying to come out a survivor, and that's what makes this film successful: the story of people. People are the story.

I am very surprised that they have not re-made this film with Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Brittany Spears. This is the type of women's film that calls to be updated, and focus on the three current ladies of scandal. In this 1950 melodrama (directed by the legendary Robert Wise), three women gather together at the base of Thunder Mountain where a young boy has been stranded, still living after a plane crash that took the lives of his adopted parents. The three women each think they could be the boy's natural mother, and through flashback, the audience learns their story. The first story surrounds unwed mother Eleanor Parker who was about to tell her boyfriend about her pregnancy when he announced he was returning to an old girlfriend. The second story surrounds a career woman (Patricia Neal) whose marriage ends, and rather than give up her position as head of a scandal magazine, gives the child up instead. The third involves nightclub chanteuse Ruth Roman, a gangster's moll who is forced to give up her child when she murders the louse who was too chicken to break up with her. Get the connection between the three current ladies of scandal? Two "bad girls" and one "nice girl" gone wrong...The problem with this film is the convoluted and sometimes unbelievable way it is told. Is it really realistic at all that Parker's new husband (Leif Ericksen) would happen to be one of the reporters covering the story and tell her about the child? She rushes to the scene of the crash where she encounters Patricia Neal, who recognizes her from the foundling home. Then, Roman storms in, drunker than all three of the current ladies I mention put together, and her story is revealed. And Ross Hunter's name is nowhere in sight on the producing credits for this movie.In the film's favor, it is very fun to watch, the type of soap opera that would soon take over TV. In fact, the storyline could belong to any of the three good or bad girls of soon-to-be broadcast on daytime ("Search For Tomorrow's" Jo; "Guiding Light's" Meta, and "Love of Life's" Meg). In some ways, this film reminded me of "Ace in the Hole" (aka "The Big Carnival"), where reporters gather together along with the curious public while a man is trapped in a mine cave-in. The film has a nice conclusion where the two "bad girls" reveal themselves to be quite noble.

Whatever suspense THREE SECRETS has is derived from the audience not knowing (until the end) which woman's boy has survived a plane crash. Each woman (ELEANOR PARKER, RUTH ROMAN and PATRICIA NEAL) thinks it's her own abandoned five year-old son. As they wait patiently for more news on the identity of the boy, each woman reflects in flashbacks on what led up to their heart-breaking decision.Robert Wise has directed all of the melodrama with some fine touches and a steady hand, so that Parker, Roman and Neal are all seen to advantage in a plot vaguely similar to that of A LETTER TO THREE WIVES in which three women await news on which husband deserted them.Parker is a woman who had an illegitimate child; Roman had to give up her child while she served a jail term; Neal was a career woman who preferred career to domestic chores.Sensibily acted and directed, it's a rather low-key melodrama that might not meet the demands of fans not enthusiastic about so-called chick flicks.

Three women review their past lives while they wait for news that will change the future totally for one of them. But it isn't "Letter to Three Wives"!Putting aside the shameless use of the formula from Mankiewicz' masterwork, "Three Secrets" is an enjoyable, well-written drama. Another similarity to "... Three Wives", and one that I have no objection to, is leads Patricia Neal, Eleanor Parker & Ruth Roman being mature, extremely attractive women; not a teenybopper or nymphet in sight.A second movie that came to mind while watching "Three Secrets" was "The Big Carnival" with its media circus of cynical reporters covering and exploiting a disaster. However Wilder's film followed this one.The beautiful Cole Porter tune `I get a kick out of you' is well used on the soundtrack.