The Women [DVD]

George Cukor’s 1939 ensemble comedy - all about women - remains a sophisticated satire about relationships, friendships, extra-marital affairs, betrayal, divorce and revenge, despite the datedness of some of its central concerns. Based on the Clare Booth Luce play of the same name, the film boasted an array of the top female stars of its day - Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland, Joan Fontaine and Paulette Goddard. In the title role Shearer plays Mary Haines, a loyal wife, mother and homemaker, secure operating within the milieu of high-society New York and confident in the knowledge that her husband is not one to stray. Her confidence is shattered however when a common shop girl (played with relish by Joan Crawford) waylays her husband and Mary soon finds herself headed for divorce. Burdened by her over-advising mother and friends Mary is bereft but not without pluck in her determination to steer her life back on course. Cukor displayed, once again, a talent for allowing cadence within a script to blossom, permitting extended scenes to play out amid an array of classic one-liners. Some of the film’s funniest sequences are set in the beauty salon and fashion houses where the women pour their abundant energy into improving themselves, in body if not quite in spirit.