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DVD The Women
George Cukor, Hollywood's legendary "woman's director," had his hands full with the all-female cast of this 1939 film adaptation of the Clare Boothe play. The story finds a group of catty, competitive friends destroying reputations at social gatherings. The dialogue sparkles, Joan Crawford's performance as a husband stealer is still a classic, the film looks wonderful in Cukor's hands, and the Technicolor fashion-show scene is a one-of-a-kind Hollywood experience. --Tom Keogh
Directed by George Cukor in 1939, from Clare Boothe Luce's satire of women's vicious and predatory nature in New York's upper class, The Women features a powerhouse cast of actresses, some only beginning long and distinguished careers. In this drama, a clique of society friends feeds off the gossip they learn from a manicurist in a nail salon. Sylvia Fowler, played superbly by Rosalind Russell, discovers, quite by accident, that Mary Haines's husband, Stephen, is having an affair with a shop girl who works behind the perfume counter at the ritzy department store where the friends shop. Crystal Allen (a pre-dark-eyebrow Joan Crawford) has set her sights on the wealthy Stephen, playing a masterful cat and mouse game of seduction. Mary (Norma Shearer), although brokenhearted, refuses to acknowledge the affair, hoping her husband will come to his senses. Wisely counseled by an astute mother, Mary is given two pieces of advice: "every man is prone to fall for the charms of a strange woman, bored by himself and his responsibilities" and "don't solicit advice from your girlfriends", because they will steer you toward divorce.
Sylvia (Russell) rallies to Mary's defense, although she is the worst and most vicious gossip of them all. Visiting the perfume counter to give Crystal a hard time, Sylvia recognizes a like-minded spirit. Mary travels to Reno for a divorce, where she makes new friends, including Paulette Goddard, whose characters has stolen Sylvia Fowler's husband. When Mary and her new friends return to New York, Stephen has married Crystal, although she is already cheating on Stephen, her comeuppance on the horizon. With this group of women, soon more gossip begins, this time about Crystal and her secret affair. Eventually, all is made right between Mary and Stephen and Crystal is shown up for the conniving social-climber that she is. The dialog is snappy, the delivery a mile a minute, the gaggle of chattering ladies spiting out rapid-fire lines. The elegant Norma Shearer is perfect as the wronged woman, patient and long-suffering, but only to a point, when she stands up to the brittle and grasping Crystal. This is old Hollywood at its satirical best and most self-important, an upper-class drama with top screen stars, couture fashions, an upbeat score that is almost playful and the emotional tug-of-war between the heroine and the arch-villainess. In her diva-like superiority, Crystal's spits, "You noble wives and mothers bore the brains out of me."
This war of the titans generates a blistering satire on the affairs of women, in this case, wealthy New Yorker's whose days are spent in idle mischief. Bearing in mind that this movie was released in 1939, one line shocked me, inserted towards the end of the movie, as Mary's mother comforts her daughter after the divorce. She explains that the single life has its compensations: "Heaven knows it's marvelous to spread out in bed like a swastika!" Luan Gaines/2005.
Simply a great movie; as for the new DVD release...
If you already own the original DVD of "The Women", don't break your neck buying this latest release--it's exactly the same DVD that came out a couple of years ago, only it's been re-packaged in a plastic case to match the other Joan Crawford releases that just came out. And, as another customer noted below, for some inexplicable reason the only photograph on the back of the package is a picture from John Ford's "7 Women" (1966), which ironically hasn't even been released on DVD. Okay, I know Warner Bros. has put out a lot of DVDs to date (thank you Warner Bros. Home Entertainment!), but this is pretty shoddy quality control--don't qualified people check such things before they get printed? (Fox Home Entertainment is infamous for making similar mistakes on their DVD packaging.) La publicite, indeed!
Anyhoo, the film is a treasure, the kind of movie you have to see multiple times to absorb all the wit and subtlety of Clare Booth Luce's original play and Anita Loos and Jane Murfin's script, plus George Cukor's masterful direction. Without a doubt, he definitely knew how to direct women, and here every actress shines equally. Every time I see it I simply can't figure out how Rosalind Russell is able to deliver her lines so briskly without taking a breath! A truly extraordinary cast in a one-of-a-kind motion picture.
One of Joan's Best!
I recently purchased the Joan Crawford Collection box set through amazon and loved it. All of the titles, including this one, are among Joan Crawford's best, that I am looking forward to Warner/Turner's release of more of her MGM films on DVD. This film is hilarious, and is carried off wonderfully by such a talented cast, including Norma Shearer and the always funny Roz Russell. I have always enjoyed this film, and the film itself deserves 5 stars. I only gave the DVD a four star rating on account of the packaging, namely the incorrect black and white photo on the back cover. By examining it closely, one can see that this photo is not from this film or time period at all. It appears to be a picture from an Anne Bancroft film. I realize that this is not that important, but I do think that more effort should have been put into the packaging of such a wonderful film, especially since it was released by a company like Warner, and not some budget company. The DVD itself is very good and includes many nice features, so I have no complaints there, just the minor one about the cover art on the case.
Remember darlings, "Life's a banquet, and most suckers are starving to death." That tag line sums up this exuberant and immensely amusing 1958 comedy that can be seen repeatedly, as it never grows stale. Rosalind Russell plays the flamboyant aunt who takes in poor, orphaned Patrick, played with sophisticated ease by Jan Handzlik. Mame, all glitter and martinis, raises her nephew in a world filled with acceptance and her oddball literati friends. Nothing is too bohemian. This unfolds in colorful episodic segments that allow us to watch Patrick grow as Mame oversees his unusual upbringing while she juggles a few spouses and an extended household. Russell, who created the title role for the stage, simply shines. She is bright and brassy, but never goes too far over the top. Peggy Cass is a... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Rosalind Russell - Forrest Tucker DVD Release Date: Released the 01 October 2002 Usually ships in 6 to 10 days
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Showered with Oscars, this wonderfully bitchy (and witty) comedy written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz concerns an aging theater star (Bette Davis) whose life is being supplanted by a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing ingenue (Anne Baxter) whom she helped. This is a film for a viewer to take in like a box of chocolates, packed with scene-for-scene delights that make the entire story even better than it really is. The film also gives deviously talented actors such as George Sanders and Thelma Ritter a chance to speak dazzling lines; Davis bites into her role and never lets go. A classic from Mankiewicz, a legendary screenwriter and the brilliant director of A Letter to Three Wives, The Barefoot Contessa, and Sleuth. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Director(s): Joseph L. Mankiewicz DVD Release Date: Released the 14 January 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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James M. Cain's pitilessly observed, unsentimental novels made for three key 40s films: Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Mildred Pierce. Since the first two deal with homicide, when they brought Mildred Pierce to the screen they turned a sociological melodrama about a woman's rise to power and prosperity into a murder mystery, too. That grotesque distortion aside, Mildred Pierce remains essentially true to this story of hauling yourself up the ladder rung by greasy rung and of a sharper-than-a-serpent's-tooth daughter. (Oops! One more change. The daughter Veda -- Ann Blyth -- a coloratura soprano in the novel, becomes a hoochie-koochie singer in a bar.) Director Michael Curtiz, fresh from his labors on Casablanca, helmed the project with a few more flashes forward and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Joan Crawford - Jack Carson Director(s): Michael Curtiz DVD Release Date: Released the 04 February 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Before he made the classic All About Eve, writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz made this clever story about three wives who spend an afternoon at a children's picnic mulling over a letter all three had just received, from a woman who says she's just run off with one of their husbands. As the wives--a former farm girl (Jeanne Crain), a radio soap opera writer (Ann Sothern), and a social climber from the wrong side of the tracks (Linda Darnell)--mull over the troubles of their marriages, each begins to think that she's the one left behind. A Letter to Three Wives doesn't have the crackling show-biz milieu of Eve, but it has the same mix of snappy dialogue and topnotch performances. The tone ranges from florid sentiment to unblinking cynicism, yet Mankiewicz... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jeanne Crain - Linda Darnell - Ann Sothern Director(s): Joseph L. Mankiewicz DVD Release Date: Released the 22 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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