Shelley Winter's portrays a madam named Polly Adler. She portrays the part of a lonely madam in during the roaring twenties of vice and corruption. She wanted love after being raped, this always eludes her into an unhappy ending. Such is life you want bells and whistles don't watch this movie?!

It's been well over 40 years for me as well since i have last seen this movie, but i remember it well. I have been trying desperately to locate this movie. Reel to reel, beta or VHS. Can someone out there please contact me at my e-mail address regarding the purchase of this movie. It means a lot to me. What I remembered most was Shelley Winters strong performance as always and raw "grittyness" of the film. If anyone can point me in the right direction of where i can purchase this film i would greatly appreciate it. Since Embassy pictures is no longer, it has been hard to track down the ownership of the libraries who may currently have this movie. Again, anyone out there, HELP!

The problem I found with A House Is Not A Home is that it was made at the worst time possible. Ten to fifteen years earlier the cast would have been better suited for their roles. Ten to fifteen years later and the Code would have been gone and a more honest film might have emerged.Shelley Winters a tad younger would have been perfect casting in the part of New York City's famous bordello madam. Still she does the best she can with the part. Folks like Robert Taylor, Cesar Romero, and Broderick Crawford are too old for the roles they played and show it. Romero plays Lucky Luciano who was in his late thirties when Thomas E. Dewey sent him to prison not in his fifties as Romero is, distinguished as he always looked. According to The Films of Robert Taylor, he was not happy with his work here, but took the role because he had a young family to support. And a more brutally honest film was something he'd never have consented to appear in anyway.Some young actresses who played Polly's girls gave some over the top performances. Understandable they didn't have careers of any substantial length.A House Is Not a Home will not be remembered by Robert Taylor's fans as one of his great films and it was a bad bump in the road in the career of Shelley Winters.

This is not a great movie, but it is not a bad movie either. It looks more like a movie made in 1944 than one made in 1964. The fact that it is in black and white probably adds to that feeling.Shelly Winters does a good job with the script she has to work with. It has some cute scenes and some omissible ones Good costumes, and workable scenery. If you are looking for an accurate portrayal of Polly Adler or even a good story based on the book, this movie comes up lacking. But like a lot of not great movies, it is very watchable.Lots of great actors appear in cameo roles in this movie, making it a good movie to say, "I never knew he/she made a movie like this."I saw this movie in the theater and it has taken me 40 years to see it again. While I liked it better the first time, it provides a good trip down memory lane and one I am very glad to have in my collection.