This weekend, I got to see the film again on the big screen, and it was such a fabulous! I am still totally and completely in love with this movie. It is gold.
West Bubblefuck cinema once a month has a Silver Screening - and I think it refers to the colour of the hair of the patrons. A Sunday matinee, with tea and bikkies at interval. Being West Bubblefuck, there is never much publicity that it is on. You have to hold your head the right way to hear a whisper on the breeze (or read the back of the toilet door at the cinema). But I got wind of this one months ago, and have been so so excited about getting to see it once more. (I have been trying to track it down on DVD for years, and it is possible to ship it from the States, but I haven't yet done that)
The film centres around a coven of Manhattan wives, and the scandals that are created by the idle hands of the wealthy females. The group of "friends" learn that Mary Haines husband is cheating on her with Crystal, a perfume sales girl, and there are bitter schemes to reveal it to Mary. It is basically a study of the relationships between females, and the lowdown, nasty things we can do to each other, without hardly even trying. Being based on a play means the whole thing is dialogue based, and if you blink your ears for just a minute you will miss the comic gold spun fine as thread, and weaved fast. Trite one liners and snippy insults fly thick and fast, and the bitchiness on screen between the rivals, played by real-life rivals Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford, is almost palpable in its electricity.
Rosalind Russell is just fabulous as Sylvia, the cat that lets the secret out of the bag. Her slapstick humour and rubbery face makes her a predecesor of the Lucy and Debra Messing brand of female comic. But with a little less ham. No wait, there is heaps of ham. And cheese. But no laugh track
The cattiness and bitchiness of these New York money-hags is the driving force of the narrative. The issue of competition between women, as though there are a finite number of men, jobs, dresses, apartments and resources that we need to battle for is not new, and nor is it one that is now resolved. The definition of female friendship will always be problematic while we compete against each other, a point made pretty solidly in by the ladies in the '70s. And this film was made (and the play was written) well before Germaine was touting about the sisterhood in bell bottoms.
The characters and storyline of The Women is still current today. In fact, aside from some acting techniques and camera work, this film has hardly dated at all. Oh, and the 15 minute fashion show/interval in the middle, with the "futuristic" outfits of the pirate and the see-through hat. Similar obsessions still run through modern pop-culture. These women are just the middle aged versions of the martini-swilling teenagers in Gossip Girl. They are the urban equivalents of the little ladies in Mad Men or their suburban counterparts in Desperate Housewives. This story, and the witty one-liners that Clare Boothe has written, are timeless.
There is not one male that appears in the movie. Aside from a picture on the back of a magazine. For 1939, that is something phenomenal. Hell, it is pretty phenomenal for the 21st century!
The only let down to the whole story, and it is a let down ideologically as well as filmically, is the last shot. The ending. If you can get your hands on the DVD, stop the film as Mary walks out of the powder-room at the casino. You will feel much better for it.
This film was tragically remade last year, with fish-face Meg Ryan as a very unsympathetic Mary. And Debra Messing also appeared, not in the hysterical role she is most suited to but as the rather fertile and befuddled redhead Edith. You must must MUST avoid this imitation, it is pale indeed. But the '39 version will make you laugh and cry and cringe and love women all the more.
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