Have times changed? Claire Boothe Luce’s bitchy 1936 socialcomedy, The Women, was a huge Broadway sensation. The rights werepurchased by MGM for a 1939 film that, like the play, features only women inits large cast. That hardly means that men play no part in the Park Avenueworld the work depicts. Virtually everything these soignée females do revolvesaround their intimate connection with (off-screen) men. For MGM, this propertywas a chance to give meaty roles to the many impressive actresses on itsroster. Some, like stars Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford, apparently had theirown off-camera feuds going. In any case, the on-screen bitchery struckaudiences then and now as hilarious, and the film has been rewarded with a spotin the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

 

The Women was vigorously helmed by George Cukor,known at the time as a “woman’s director.” Cukor (whom I was honored tointerview late in his life) could produce work of great subtlety, but TheWomen is hardly what you’d call subtle. Even the opening credits tell usexactly what to think about the cast of characters. Each of the main women isintroduced by her married name: for example, Shearer is labeled as Mrs. StephenHaines (Mary). And before we see a tell-tale closeup of the actress incharacter, there’s a quick image of an appropriate (female) animal. Shearer’s sensible,amiable Mary is depicted as a doe. Her soon-to-be archrival Crawford, in therole of a  shopgirl who’s after Mary’shusband, is shown as a sleek, cunning leopard. Third-billed Rosalind Russell,whose capricious character stirs up much of the trouble in the film, is a blackcat. Others on-screen are represented by a monkey, a fox, a lamb, an owl, a cow(we then see everyone’s favorite confidante, played by Phyllis Povah,essentially chewing her cud), and an old mare (that would be homespun MarjorieMain as a Reno landlady).

 

The outrageousness continues in the film’s opening scenes,set in and around a posh Manhattan health spa full of fawning uniformedattendants . The first thing we see, at the spa’s front door, is two pamperedpooches snarling at one another. Quite soon it’s the woman themselves who aresnarling, while gossiping over the manicure table and pretending to be eachother’s best friends. One spa patron, gazing at another’s face through amagnifying contraption, sweetly declares, “Your skin makes the Rocky Mountainslook like chiffon velvet.” Even Shearer’s appealing Mary will eventually learn,while on a trip to Reno to divorce her straying (but still loving) spouse, thatthere’s no special virtue in being nice: “I’ve had two years to grow claws . .. . Jungle Red.” And speaking of claws, the screen erupts with more than one physicalcat-fight among the ladies who lunch.

 

Does The Women have any lessons for us? I’m not sosure. True, good-hearted Mary does regain her equilibrium and her spouse, andCrystal heads back to the perfume counter. (These are spoilers, true, but cancertainly be predicted from the film’s opening moments onward.) Still, virtuedoesn’t exactly triumph. In many ways, it’s bitchery that reigns supreme. It’scurious to note that a 21st century film remake was attempted. Ittook fifteen years to develop the project, which ultimately, when released in2008, starred Meg Ryan, Annette Bening,, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pickett Smith, Carrie Fisher, Cloris Leachman, Debi Mazar Bette Midler,and Candice Bergen. Diane English of MurphyBrown fame wrote and directed, but her attempt at an update left critics (andaudiences) distinctly unimpressed.