“A Girl Alone in a man's World”

Abstract

War films were one of British cinema's mainstays throughout the 1950s, and one of the most iconic of the cycle is Ice Cold in Alex (1958). This particular film overturned some of the already familiar conventions of the genre, not least by allowing a female character, the nursing sister Diana Murdoch (played by Sylvia Syms), to play a more important role than women were usually granted. This article deploys close textual analysis to examine the representation of Diana, and suggests how this character not only reflects various competing and often self-contradictory discourses of 1950s femininity but also offers a rare depiction of women's contribution to the war effort from the decade following it.

Keywords:

• Ice Cold in Alex
• Sylvia Syms
• J. Lee Thompson
• 1950s
• British cinema
• war films

Notes

1. Revisionist work on 1950s British cinema includes Geraghty (2000), Harper & Porter (2003), and Mackillop & Sinyard (2003). An important early reassessment of the war film was Medhurst (1984). Two key articles dealing specifically with post-war films are Chapman (1998) and Ramsden (1998).

2. For an overview of press responses to the film upon its release, see Chibnall (2000, pp. 200–203).

3. Other post-war depictions of women's wartime experiences include the comedies The Weaker Sex (1948), about a chaotic middle-class household in Portsmouth, and Operation Bullshine (1959), a Carry On-style farce featuring Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) girls.

4. See Marwick (1974) for his thesis on the link between total war and the emancipation of women. His views are strongly refuted by Smith (1986), who argues that wartime employment had little lasting effect on women's status, with most women wishing to return to pre-war patterns of behaviour. Summerfield (1988) provides a synthesis of the two approaches. Marwick may overestimate the contribution of the war towards sexual equality, she argues, but Smith underestimates the extent to which women felt themselves changed by their war experiences and wanted to stay in paid employment or lead a fuller life outside the home than previously.

5. One important difference is that they can take off more clothes than she can. The Diana in Landon's original book draws attention to this inequality: “There was just one feeling now—that of a great resentment, they had all stripped off to the waist, they were cool. She felt the wet heavy weight of her shirt, the sweat trickling between her breasts. It wasn't fair… she'd show them… if he [Anson] spoke to her like that again, she'd take it off” (Landon 1957, p. 226).

6. Release script of . Missing dialogue runs as follows:

Diana: What's going to happen to us tomorrow?

Anson: Tomorrow? Oh tomorrow, you'll go back to your unit, Tom and I'll go back to ours.

Diana: And in a few days you'll have forgotten we ever met.

Anson: I won't forget.