ABOUT MRS. LESLIE **

A strange little romantic drama that many people have never seen or even heard of. "About Mrs Leslie" is the story of an over-the-hill  New York chanteuse who accepts an invitation from a stranger, (Robert Ryan), to spend six weeks with him as his companion in California. It was based on a Vina Delmar novel, was directed by Daniel Mann and it gave Shirley Booth another plum part after her Oscar-winning turn in "Come Back, Little Sheba". Perhaps sexless, middle-aged romances weren't quite what the public was after at the time and the film all but disappeared and Booth, who came to movies late in life, never became a film-star, (she only made four feature films in her career). However, she did make it big on television in the long-running series "Hazel". She was a highly gifted actress and here she found the perfect partner in Ryan, surely among the most underrated of all great actors. There isn't a great deal in the way of plot but it does have a lot of charm and Booth looks like she could make reading the phone book sound interesting. One worth seeing.