Richard Crenna as a good father with established business and a nice wife (Joanna Woodward) and daughter has his life suddenly interrupted at 48 as he plays tennis and folds up. He is dead at the hospital a few days later without having explained anything to anyone because of his loss of speech. After his death it turns out he has had a mistress since eight years who has a boy, eight years old, his only son. Naturally Joanne Woodward when she learns about this goes mad. When people start to break things and go berserk at home smashing memories and even works of art to pieces you can't help despising these irrational outbursts of uncontrolled ire making no sense at all. This always happens in American films but for some reason never in British films, except rarely and occasionally. You can't appreciate Joanne Woodward's explosions of furious intolerance, but fortunately her daughter and the illegitimate son find each other and provide a safety line to redemption. Both Joanne Woodward and Lindsay Wagner give admirable performances, although Lindsay Wagner is more sympathetic. The frame of the film is rather Douglas Sirk-like, a slow melodrama with a reconciliatory end with really not much happening in between, apart from the settlement drama. It is well done but very conventional. Only Viveca Lindfors sticks out as a bizarre spice in the muddled up relationships.
