“When a Woman Ascends the Stairs” is obsessed with finding the money to survive. Hideko Takamine’s character, Mama, is constantly getting the shakedown.

And it’s also very melodramatic. Mama’s got a dead husband, a tumultuous love life, polio stricken nephew. Mr. Welch’s comparison to Jane Wyman is apt because we really could just weep our way through, and claim that the film is overly sentimental. You’ll recall that Jane Wyman was the star of Douglas Sirk’s subversive ’women’s films’.
I’m saying that there’s a lot more going on than materialism and melodrama.

Donald Richie provides one of the better commentary tracks I’ve come upon. Dives into the film, deconstructing individual scenes, and takes us out into the cultural/historical context, and the life of the auteur. Never really forces his opinion, rather he raises questions that leave the movie up for interpretation