''A House Is Not a Home'' is a 1964 drama film loosely based on the 1953 autobiography by madam
Polly Adler
Pearl "Polly" Adler (April 16, 1900 – June 9, 1962) was an American madam and author, best known for her work ''A House Is Not a Home'', which was posthumously adapted into a film of the same name. In 2021, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian D ...
. The film stars
Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters (born Shirley Schrift; August 18, 1920 – January 14, 2006) was an American actress whose career spanned seven decades. She appeared in numerous films. She won Academy Awards for ''The Diary of Anne Frank'' (1959) and ''A Patch o ...
,
Robert Taylor,
Cesar Romero
Cesar Julio Romero Jr. (February 15, 1907 – January 1, 1994) was an American actor and activist. He was active in film, radio, and television for almost sixty years.
His wide range of screen roles included Latin lovers, historical figures in c ...
, and
Kaye Ballard
Kaye Ballard (November 20, 1925 – January 21, 2019) was an American actress, comedian, and singer.
Early life
Ballard was born Catherine Gloria Balotta in Cleveland, Ohio, one of four children born to Italian immigrant parents, Lena (née Nac ...
.
Raquel Welch
Jo Raquel Welch ( Tejada; September 5, 1940) is an American actress.
She first won attention for her role in '' Fantastic Voyage'' (1966), after which she won a contract with 20th Century Fox. They lent her contract to the British studio Hamm ...
made her film debut in a small role as a call girl. The
song written for the film by
Burt Bacharach
Burt Freeman Bacharach ( ; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Gra ...
and
Hal David
Harold Lane David (May 25, 1921 – September 1, 2012) was an American lyricist. He grew up in New York City. He was best known for his collaborations with composer Burt Bacharach and his association with Dionne Warwick.
Early life
David ...
has become a standard.
Plot
Polly Adler is a poor Polish immigrant who works in a
sweatshop
A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor, socially unacceptable or illegal working conditions. Some illegal working conditions include poor ventilation, little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting, o ...
. She loses her job after she is sexually assaulted by her boss, for which her housemates blame her. She then is forced to move out.
Her next apartment is in a building owned by Frank Costigan, a gangster. Frank approves of Polly's attractive girlfriends and pays her to have the ladies go out socially with his friends.
One thing leads to another, and soon Polly is the madam of a
bordello
A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub pa ...
. She has genuine feelings for musician Casey Booth, but does not reveal her true occupation to him.
Costigan becomes the top enforcer for mob boss
Lucky Luciano and backs Polly's business, which ends up on
Park Avenue
Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenu ...
offering high-class call girls. Casey proposes marriage, so Polly finally confesses what she does for a living. He is willing to overlook it, but Polly feels it is for the best if they part.
Cast
Award nominations
Edith Head
Edith Head (October 28, 1897 – October 24, 1981) was an American costume designer who won a record eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design between 1949 and 1973, making her the most awarded woman in the Academy's history. Head is cons ...
was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Costume Design
The Academy Award for Best Costume Design is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) for achievement in film costume design.
The award was first given in 1949, for films made in 194 ...
, Black-and-White.
External links
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1964 films
1964 drama films
American independent films
American black-and-white films
Drama films based on actual events
Films directed by Russell Rouse
Films set in New York City
Films set in the 1920s
Films about prostitution in the United States
American drama films
Embassy Pictures films
1960s English-language films
1960s American films
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