The Women (1939)
GEORGE CUKOR
Bil’s rating (out of 5): BBBB. USA, 1939. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Screenplay by Anita Loos, Jane Murfin, based on the play by Clare Booth Luce. Cinematography by Oliver T. Marsh, Joseph Ruttenberg. Produced by Hunt Stromberg. Music by David Snell, Edward Ward. Production Design by Cedric Gibbons. Costume Design by Adrian. Film Editing by Robert Kern.
Hedda Hopper, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer and Joan Fontaine in The Women.
What happens when you take the men away and just watch a bunch of women gabbing it up? They talk about men, of course! Not a single male of the species appears in this George Cukor comedy, but during their absence every member of the female cast manages to find trouble with one of them. Norma Shearer plays a high-society wife who is devastated when she learns that her husband is leaving her for a perfume salesgirl (Joan Crawford), with whom he has been carrying an affair for a very long time. Rosalind Russell is hysterical as the good friend who appears just in time to deliver the best cut-ups to both parties. This one-liner-laden adaptation of the famous Claire Booth Luce play also features a great cross-country adventure involving Shearer’s trip to Reno to get her divorce, where she meets a colourful collection of divorcees worth writing home about, plus a fashion show filmed in full Technicolour.
