The Woman Inside

The Woman Inside
Directed byJoseph Van Winkle
Written byJoseph Van Winkle
Steve Fisher
Produced bySidney H. Levine
CinematographyRon Johanson
Edited byJohn Duffy
Music byEddy Lawrence Manson & Leo Köppen
Production
company
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release date
  • September 1981 (1981-09)
Running time
94 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Woman Inside is a 1981 drama film directed by Joseph Van Winkle who co-wrote the screenplay with Steve Fisher. The film stars Gloria Manon, Leo Köppen, Dane Clark, Michael Champion and Joan Blondell, which was Blondell's last movie she appeared in before her death in 1979.

Plot

The film portrays the actions of a tough Vietnam veteran who is experiencing intense gender dysphoria and wants to have gender-affirming surgery. Her aunt, who does not approve, struggles to understand why she would want do such a thing.

After meeting with the Doctor, she starts hormone therapy, attends classes where she meets other people like her, and then has the surgery. In the end, she moves to San Francisco, where she meets a man who might just be the right one.

Cast

Production

Manon said that "the experience was disastrous, there was no direction, Van Winkle decided to just leave it to the actors." Manon recalled that Van Winkle disrespected Blondell, by ignoring her needs for comfort and rest.[1] The movie was the last picture that Blondell appeared in, and it was released after her death in 1979.[2]

Reception

Laurie Ann from LadyLike magazine wrote "it portrays Hollis/Holly and sex change surgery in a positive mature fashion; it avoids being clinical and spares us from the gruesome details of the surgery; intead the film focuses on some of the critical issues that a TS faces in making the transition from male to female."[3]

Critic Jacqi Tully was disappointed with the film, stating, "the movie is silly, poorly made and confusing; and it is shallow; you will know nothing more about transsexuals after the film than before it."[4] American journalist Michael Musto from The Village Voice called it "a bizarrely earnest, yet at the same time, deeply trashy 1981 drive-in-caliber film."[5]

Veronica Brown wrote in The TV-TS Tapestry that while "the film takes the viewer through the anguish, suffering and frustration of a gender dysphoric Hollis; in comparison to reality, the major flaw in the film was the miraculous physical transformation undergone by Hollis to Holly after only six months of hormone therapy."[6]

Author Susan Nash opined "it frequently fails to establish a believable base somewhere between the extremes of Vietnam and sex reassignment surgery; it also suffers as a cheaply made film; despite almost total darkness, the Vietnam scenes are not credible; the pun on Ho//ywood hardly compensates for the third-rate travelogue patched in when Hollis returns, and the romantic conclusion in San Francisco isn’t much better."[7]

Home media

The movie was released on VHS by Simitar Entertainment in 1985.[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ Kennedy, Matthew (2009). Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes. University Press of Mississippi. p. 334. ISBN 978-1-62674-432-5.
  2. ^ Weldon, Michael (1996). The Psychotronic Video Guide To Film. Macmillan. p. 626. ISBN 978-0-312-13149-4.
  3. ^ Laurie Ann (1999). "The Woman Inside". LadyLike. No. 39. p. 38. ISSN 1092-9207.
  4. ^ Tully, Jacqi (October 1, 1981). "'Woman' film dodges issues of sex change". Arizona Daily Star. p. 21. Retrieved June 9, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ Musto, Michael (July 3, 2008). "Trash Cinema Treasure: The Woman Inside". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on October 30, 2025.
  6. ^ Brown, Veronica Jean (1988). "In Search Of The Invisible Transsexual". The TV-TS Tapestry. No. 51. p. 74. ISSN 0884-9749.
  7. ^ Nash, Susan (2011). Malo, Jean-Jacques; Williams, Tony (eds.). Vietnam War Films. Vol. 2. McFarland & Company. p. 489. ISBN 978-0-7864-6710-5.
  8. ^ White, Adam, ed. (August 10, 1985). "New Releases: Home Video". Billboard Magazine. Vol. 97, no. 32. p. 49.

Further reading

  • The Woman Inside at IMDb
  • The Woman Inside at the TCM Movie Database
  • The Woman Inside at the British Film Institute
  • The Woman Inside at Rotten Tomatoes
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