MOVIE REVIEW : THE WORLD OF WOMEN IN ‘STEAMING’

“Steaming” (at the Westside Pavilion) has a double meaning: the anger a group of London women feel toward men--and toward life in general, and the steambaths they take to work it off.

But Joseph Losey’s graceful film of the Nell Dunn play, for which his wife Patricia provided the adaptation, is by no means a strident feminist manifesto. Imagine, instead, “The Women” set in a steam bath and fitted out with modest and just sentiments of the need for equality with men and the virtues of feminine solidarity.

On the whole, the women of this particular London bath would agree with that timeless philosophical attitude toward men: You can’t live with ‘em, you can’t live without ‘em. They just want to feel they’re as important as the opposite sex and that they can enjoy the same kind of control over their own destinies. (You do wish, however, that Dunn could acknowledge just once that there are trade-offs and compromises in men’s lives as well.)

Although the film, completed in 1984, gives no indication of time, the play was set in the late ‘70s, which accounts for why its women’s lib attitudes seem so dated. Yet it is quite enjoyable in its unabashedly theatrical way, just as George Cukor’s film of “The Women” still entertains. “Steaming” is more fun than profound.

Things get under way when Nancy (Vanessa Redgrave) agrees to meet her old school chum Sarah (Sarah Miles) at a public bath, a glorious but dingy old Beaux Arts pile, an edifice constructed as “a luxury for the working people.” (Nancy, a housewife with two children, and Sarah are decidedly upper middle class, but Sarah has discovered the reviving virtues of the Establishment after forsaking the jet set for a more taxing career in law.)

Nancy and Sarah represent the upper reaches of Dunn’s socioeconomic cross section. Her other key women are Violet (Diana Dors), the good-natured, now matronly platinum blonde who’s managed the baths for 18 years and has served as mother confessor to its patrons; Josie (Patti Love), an impoverished, sometime topless dancer with a masochistic passion for her brutal German lover; Mrs. Meadow (Brenda Bruce), a poor, ailing neighborhood widow, and her fleshy, slightly retarded grown daughter Dawn (Felicity Dean).

What really concerns Dunn--and what keeps “Steaming” alive--is the question of whether women can reach across class barriers to enrich and enlighten each other’s lives. What can Nancy, who finally admits that her businessman husband of 17 years abruptly left her for another woman, and Sarah, who’s decided to put career before men, learn from Josie, and vice versa? The answers are encouraging, well earned and no less heartwarming for being unsurpising.

Losey regards Dunn’s women with affection and compassion, and Redgrave and Miles (overdue for such a substantial part) respond well to his direction. Love has the showiest role, as a shrewd, enraged innocent, but her all-stops-out performance is better proportioned for the proscenium than the camera. Production designer Maurice Fowler’s contribution is crucial: The faded grandeur of his arches, columns and sweeping staircases allows cinematographer Christopher Challis to create some stunning compositions.

Both Losey and Dors died not long after “Steaming” (rated R for considerable casual nudity and much blunt talk) was completed. For Losey, “Steaming” provided an honorable, even elegant valedictory to a distinguished, idiosyncratic and often troubled career; for Dors it’s even better, a fine farewell to the sexy blonde who started out as Britain’s answer to Marilyn Monroe and ended up as skilled a character actress as Joan Blondell.

‘STEAMING’

A New World Pictures of a World Film Service production. Executive producer Richard F. Dalton. Producer Paul Mills. Director Joseph Losey. Screenplay Patricia Losey; adapted from the Nell Dunn play. Camera Christopher Challis. Production designer Maurice Fowler. Music Richard Harvey. Film editor Reginald Beck. With Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, Diana Dors, Patti Love, Brenda Bruce, Felicity Dean, Sally Sagoe, Anna Tzelniker.

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.

MPAA rating: R (under 17 requires an accompanying parent or adult guardian).