The Truth About Women

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Lacking real wit or polish, this is an extravagantly upholstered charade, falling short of the sophisticated comedy of manners it sets out to be. Apart from Laurence Harvey's heavy and charmless Humphrey, the performances are good; on all their efforts are sacrificed to a dull script and uninspired direction."^[7]

The New York Times wrote:

An erratic but basically good-natured color pacing written, directed and produced by Muriel and Sydney Box. With Laurence Harvey heading a large, impressive cast ... Visually, the picture is luscious. The five episodes that carry the well-born hero from young manhood to the fireside spread out over beautifully tinted, lavish period and modern settings. The small army of ladies engulfing the poor bloke have been dressed to kill by an expert, Cecil Beaton. Smoothly, deviously and knowingly the picture slides along as if a good joke were tucked up one of the Beaton sleeves ... As an uncomplicated young painter who marries him and eventually dies in childbirth, our own American Miss Harris is splendid, far and away the best and least glittering thing in the picture. Her meeting with Mr. Harvey, in a stranded elevator, is a gem of a scene. The last section, as Mr. Harvey almost attains happiness with a wise, unselfish nurse, movingly played by Miss Zetterling, slides appropriately into a bittersweet but lighthearted fade-out. Of the large cast, such people as Michael Denison, Derek Farr, Marius Goring, Roland Culver and Wilfred Hyde-White bolster the opulent tapestry with effective bits. As for why it should take an intelligent, red-blooded Englishman more than fifty years to discover the "truth," as Mr. Harvey finally states it, we thought they learned that at Eton.^[8]

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "In a bizarre charade, Laurence Harvey plays a sort of Don Juan character, recalling his amorous, exotic adventures in Arabia, Paris, London, New York, the First World War and beyond. The moral is that one's first love is the only love that matters – aaah! – but the problem here is that Harvey is also something of a cold fish, not overly furnished with charm. The women make the most of their extended cameos, and pose in their Cecil Beaton costumes."^[9]

Leslie Halliwell said: "Tedious charade with neither wit nor grace."^[10]

TV Guide: "the direction is simply too serious for what should have been a much lighter comedy, so the film falls far short of its intentions".^[11]

• The Truth About Women at IMDb
• The Truth About Women then-and-now location photographs at ReelStreets