Movie of the Week XII

The Women (1939)

1939 was a damn good year for movies. Pardon the language, but goodness gracious! It was a strangely awesome Hollywood annum. Gone with The Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach (starring a ridiculously young John Wayne), Dark Victory, Gunga Din...the list could go on. One of these movies would make 1939 a great year, but all of them coming out at the same time!? Wow.

Not least of 1939's super films is The Women. Besides being an excellent movie, it is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. One, there are no men in the movie. The slogan for the film is "It's all about men!" which is sort of true but not really. The conflict revolves around an adulterous husband (a few cheatin' men, actually), but the main focus is on the women and their relationships. No men are ever on screen. I can't think of another movie like that, besides the 2008 remake of The Women. The Women was also re-made as The Opposite Sex in 1956 starring June Allyson, but there are men in that one and it lost all spark and edge. The lead male is actually Leslie Nielsen, whom I only knew as a funnyman. He is very young and handsome in the 1956 film, but sort of bland.

Here is the cast in their beautiful evening gowns. No men!

Two, the movie is based on a play written by Clara Boothe Luce and the screenplay features contributions from Anita Loos, the author of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, though he was not in the credits.

Three, the movie is in black and white except for an insanely-irrelevant-to-the-plot six minute fashion show. Adrian, the legendary MGM fashion designer, created all the clothes for the movie, and the fashion show is the movie saying "Look what Adrian can do! Isn't he great? And look how rich MGM is!" The fashion show is sort of justified (almost) by having all the major characters in attendance and staging a dramatic confrontation between the wife and the "other woman" in the dressing rooms after the show...but the whole thing makes me chuckle. It is such a blatant "look at me!" moment and so MGM. That said, I love it. The clothes are extraordinary and it is just the sort of extravagant fantasy that makes old movies, particularly from MGM, so remarkable and fantastic.

So those are some reasons why The Women is interesting. It is also entertaining. Great cast, great script.

The movie is about Mary Haines (Norma Shearer, not my favorite but fine in this movie) and her perfect life as a wealthy, socially elite, happily married wife and mother in New York City. But things are not as perfect as they seem. Duh. Her "friends" some of whom seem to be waiting and hoping for her fall (warning: the movie does not give a super positive picture of the female sex, especially in regards to their capability for real friendship), soon hear that her husband is doing some philandering. Sylvia (Rosalind Russell, who is awesome, by the way,) is getting a manicure at Sydney's Salon. (The salon in the film supposedly is named for the hair guru at MGM, Sidney Guilaroff.) The manicurist with the comically annoying nasal voice talks about her friend Crystal who works behind a perfume counter and how she is going with Mr. Stephen Haines.

Sylvia cannot wait to spread the news.

She tells all her friends, and then instead of breaking the news to Mary gently, she sends Mary to the same manicurist. Of course the manicurist begins her tale again, not knowing who Mary is. Mary is, understandably, heartbroken.

Although many of her friends and even her mother urge Mary to keep quiet and hope that Stephen will eventually end the affair and come back, she refuses. Well, at first she tries to stay calm and not do anything. But then comes the fashion show...

The scene begins in black and white with all the major cast assembled. Notice that Sylvia is knitting. Fabulous.

A small square of color opens on the screen and then everything changes to technicolor. It is sort of a Wizard of Oz moment but without the munchkins. And instead of a crazy fantastical garden-land, it is a crazy fantastical fashion show with elaborate backdrops and ever-changing sets. We start with a tennis court, then go to the beach, then a zoo, then a summer picnic, then the theater, then a restaurant...

Really practical designs. Everyone wants to go swimming in an off-white mummy burka bikini with a clear plastic visor.

In a really magnificent moment, the camera zooms in on monkeys in the zoo scene who are dressed to match the models. Who thought of that? And were drugs involved?

Perhaps my favorite outfit is the severed hand beach cover-up. From a distance it is a pretty white cape with pink flowers and a funny hat...but then it gets closer and closer...

...until you can see the clasp at the neck...which is a life-like human hand with a diamond ring clutching a flower. As though the poor woman was picking flowers when she met with her accident, and the severed hand would not release the rose. Well done, Adrian. Way to give me nightmares.

Gone with the Wind the novel and the movie were extremely influential and everyone was crazy over antebellum styles. So of course Adrian included some southern belle hoopskirts in the fashion show. Looks like something Scarlett would have worn to the picnic.

Then we go to the theater....

...and finally back to the "reality" of the movie after six minutes of pointless awesomeness. The switch to black and white is a little jarring.

The plot picks right back up again. Mary Haines heads to the dressing room to try on some dresses she has just seen. In a strange coincidence, Crystal (a wonderfully catty and cheap Joan Crawford) is put in the dressing room across the hall. Sylvia hears Crystal tell the saleswoman to charge her purchases to Mr. Stephen Haines. She is ecstatic at the opportunity to cause a scene, so she arranges for Mary and Crystal to meet face to face.

Mary tries to outclass Crystal, but Crystal keeps replying with wonderfully cruel lines. For instance, Mary tells Crystal that Stephen would not like the dress she is trying on because it is too "obvious." Crystal answers, smiling, "Thanks for the tip. But when anything I wear doesn't please Stephen, I take it off." Ooohhh.

This is the final straw for Mary, who heads to Reno to get a divorce. She is there for six weeks, the required time for a divorce. She stays at a ranch which caters exclusively to soon-to-be-divorcees. That is funny in itself. She meets some fun women and there is a nice cat fight, too, when one woman finds out that the "other woman" in her destroyed marriage is staying at the same ranch.

Mary keeps hoping that Stephen will fight to keep her, but it turns out that Mary's big step for independence just opens the door for Stephen to marry Crystal. Sylvia befriends Crystal and there is a lovely scene in the bathroom when Crystal is in the bubble bath and Sylvia comes to call. A private telephone line, a male caller...Sylvia is ecstatic again. And look at her teeny hat! Oh the clothes in this film! Marvelous.

I shan't tell you how it ends. Only one of the last lines which Crystal delivers to the high society ladies at a posh nightspot in the final scene: "There's a name for you, ladies, but it isn't used in polite society...outside of a kennel." Today she would just call them the name and probably use some other bad words, too. Or shoot them or something. I love the subtle power of these old movies.

I wasn't crazy about the re-make. I think that The Women is such a product of that time that it is difficult to transpose it to today. In the recent one the women have jobs and there is much more of a focus on not needing men and being independent. This is great--honestly, the 1939 version is a little anti-feminist at times. Well, you could argue both ways. But most of the women are very wealthy and just hang out at beauty salons and fashion shows and gyms (I love the scene at the fitness center--the exercises they do are hilarious), and the movie finds nothing "wrong" with their lifestyle. They don't need to find their ambition and become executives, and the lazy, mean women who live off their rich husbands are not "punished." My basic point is that the catty humor of the original and the fundamental situations no longer work today, so they were altered for the 2008 movie. Which I think lessens the re-make.

Also, the whole thing about having to go to Reno for six weeks in order to get the divorce no longer applies. I missed that part of the movie.

One of the most fun things about the 1939 film is to watch the female relationships. In the 2008 version it seemed that the filmmakers were more hesitant about depicting women in a negative, i.e., catty, way. It isn't as politically correct to do that anymore. So some of the raw cruelty and funny, sharp dialogue is missing. For example, in the 2008 version they justify Sylvia's betrayal of Mary (she exposes the affair); Sylvia has to tell or her career will suffer. The 1939 Sylvia tells because she loves the power and drama of the secret. There is no excusing her actions. And I think that makes it more fun. Not that I condone the film's depiction of women or anything, but it is still fun and sort of zingy. So watch it. And then you can decide.