Movie 3 - "The Women"

Ok.  So this is another George Cukor...you will see him often during this film trip...from 1939.  This is often called "the best year for movies."  This movie is cast only with women.  There is not a single man in the cast.  Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford head the lineup, although my favorites in this film are Mary Boland, Paulette Goddard, Marjorie Main, and Rosalind Russell.  The supporting roles are good comic relief.  This movie was remade in recent years, although I don't think it did the original justice.

In this film, Mary Haines (Shearer) is married and blindly thinks she and her husband are living happily ever after.  Not true, thanks to Crystal Allen (Crawford).  Crystal is a perfume salesgirl that Mary's husband is having an affair with.  All Mary's superficial, society "friends" know before her and relish in her unhappiness.  The whole "misery loves company" scenario.  Once she finds out, Mary has to make the decision, stay or go.  The decision is made to leave her husband and head to Reno, the divorce capital at the time.  Once on the train to Reno, Mary meets a slew of new characters, including Boland's Countess De Lave and Goddard's Miriam Aarons.  All the time, Mary is in love with her husband and hoping for him to call, but too proud to call him.  After the divorce is final, Mary's husband marries Crystal Allen and New York society is divided into two groups...Team Mary and Team Crystal.  It all ends in a society ladies' showdown at a party with secrets revealed and Mary's true feelings for her ex-husband out in the open.

This is like the "Rocky" of movies for women who have been cheated on.  The "good guy" wins and the "bad guy" gets what's coming to her.  And no one plays the bad guy like Joan Crawford!  From what I have heard, Crawford and Shearer really did not get along and I can totally see that in their few scenes together.  At this time in history, women were beginning to come into their own and seeing themselves as equals to men.  You see those changes in conversations between Mary and her mother.  It is very interesting to hear in this day and age.  Another interesting aspect is the social climbing way of the "shopgirl" vixen stereotype played by Crawford.  She is trying the whole time to get into the "easy" life of society women and then sabotages herself once she gets it.  This is a need to see for any classic movie fan!