I don't know who was the more confused, Ginger Rogers' character, the lady in the dark of the title, or me trying to make sense of the plot and her character's motivations.
She plays Liza, the stressed-out-of-her-box fashion magazine editor, who as if she hasn't got enough problems, also has two, soon-to-be-three ardent admirers in hot pursuit of her. Quite how she manages this is questionable given her generally frosty outlook and tendency to dress unflatteringly in male-cut clothes.
Anyway, she goes to her doctor for help but he only sends her to a psychiatrist because of course it's in her subconscious where her problems lie. The shrink soon traces her issues back to her childhood relations with her now deceased mother and father, the former who was cold to her and the father who seemed to care for her but who always deferred to his bossy wife.
Now a boss-lady herself, as Ray Milland's irritating but ambitious lead designer constantly terms her, how is she going to decide which guy to romance, which theme to go with for the next issue of the magazine and most importantly get a good night's sleep without slipping into the most amazing, surreal, technicolour dreams which keep her awake?
I've read speculation that Lisa is covering up her own homosexuality, while the other more likely takeaway is that really she just yearns for a strong, dominating man to remove all her worries and leave her free presumably to be the dutiful housewife and mother.
Neither of these scenarios of course play well today thankfully in today's more enlightened times and it's something of a pity to see such a strong-minded actress as Rogers docilely play a character who caves in so easily to what society appears to demand of her.
And about those dream sequences, they're impossibly lush and surreal as we see Rogers letting herself go by stepping out on the dance-floor in a beautiful ball-gown.
You'll have to watch the film to the end to determine her final decisions as regards both her future employment and love-life but I must admit I found it all very unconvincing and shallow. Although it would like to think that this is a hip delve into the voguish subject of psychoanalysis, in truth it just panders to contemporary concepts of chauvinism and female subservience.
I understand that whole swathes of the original Broadway musical score were excised from the finished movie as apparently one of the producers didn't care for Kurt Weill's composing ability. Me, I only have to see and hear the rendition of the brilliant "Poor Jenny" to take the composer's side.
Overpowering on the eye, but underpoweref in content, I've made up my mind that this particular movie could have been a lot better than it actually turned out.
She plays Liza, the stressed-out-of-her-box fashion magazine editor, who as if she hasn't got enough problems, also has two, soon-to-be-three ardent admirers in hot pursuit of her. Quite how she manages this is questionable given her generally frosty outlook and tendency to dress unflatteringly in male-cut clothes.
Anyway, she goes to her doctor for help but he only sends her to a psychiatrist because of course it's in her subconscious where her problems lie. The shrink soon traces her issues back to her childhood relations with her now deceased mother and father, the former who was cold to her and the father who seemed to care for her but who always deferred to his bossy wife.
Now a boss-lady herself, as Ray Milland's irritating but ambitious lead designer constantly terms her, how is she going to decide which guy to romance, which theme to go with for the next issue of the magazine and most importantly get a good night's sleep without slipping into the most amazing, surreal, technicolour dreams which keep her awake?
I've read speculation that Lisa is covering up her own homosexuality, while the other more likely takeaway is that really she just yearns for a strong, dominating man to remove all her worries and leave her free presumably to be the dutiful housewife and mother.
Neither of these scenarios of course play well today thankfully in today's more enlightened times and it's something of a pity to see such a strong-minded actress as Rogers docilely play a character who caves in so easily to what society appears to demand of her.
And about those dream sequences, they're impossibly lush and surreal as we see Rogers letting herself go by stepping out on the dance-floor in a beautiful ball-gown.
You'll have to watch the film to the end to determine her final decisions as regards both her future employment and love-life but I must admit I found it all very unconvincing and shallow. Although it would like to think that this is a hip delve into the voguish subject of psychoanalysis, in truth it just panders to contemporary concepts of chauvinism and female subservience.
I understand that whole swathes of the original Broadway musical score were excised from the finished movie as apparently one of the producers didn't care for Kurt Weill's composing ability. Me, I only have to see and hear the rendition of the brilliant "Poor Jenny" to take the composer's side.
Overpowering on the eye, but underpoweref in content, I've made up my mind that this particular movie could have been a lot better than it actually turned out.