The Women (1939 Film)
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''The Women'' is a 1939 American
comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...
film directed by
George Cukor George Dewey Cukor (; July 7, 1899 – January 24, 1983) was an American film director and film producer. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO when David O. Selznick, the studio's Head ...
. The film is based on
Clare Boothe Luce Clare Boothe Luce ( Ann Clare Boothe; March 10, 1903 – October 9, 1987) was an American writer, politician, U.S. ambassador, and public conservative figure. A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play '' The Women'', which ha ...
's 1936 play of the same name, and was adapted for the screen by
Anita Loos Corinne Anita Loos (April 26, 1888 – August 18, 1981) was an American actress, novelist, playwright and screenwriter. In 1912, she became the first female staff screenwriter in Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood, when D. W. Griffith put h ...
and
Jane Murfin Jane Murfin (October 27, 1884 – August 10, 1955) was an American playwright and screenwriter. The author of several successful plays, she wrote some of them with actress Jane Cowl—most notably '' Smilin' Through'' (1919), which was adapted ...
, who had to make the film acceptable for the
Production Code The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the ...
for it to be released. The film stars
Norma Shearer Edith Norma Shearer (August 11, 1902June 12, 1983) was a Canadian-American actress who was active on film from 1919 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated ingénues. She appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'N ...
,
Joan Crawford Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur; March 23, ncertain year from 1904 to 1908was an American actress. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion pict ...
,
Rosalind Russell Catherine Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907November 28, 1976) was an American actress, comedienne, screenwriter, and singer,Obituary ''Variety'', December 1, 1976, p. 79. known for her role as fast-talking newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson in the H ...
,
Paulette Goddard Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy; June 3, 1910 – April 23, 1990) was an American actress notable for her film career in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Born in Manhattan and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Goddard initially began her career ...
,
Joan Fontaine Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (October 22, 1917 – December 15, 2013), known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was a British-American actress who is best known for her starring roles in Hollywood films during the "Golden Age". Fontaine appeared ...
,
Lucile Watson Lucile Watson (May 27, 1879 – June 24, 1962) was a Canadian actress, long based in the United States. She was "famous for her roles of formidable dowagers." Early years Watson was born in Quebec and raised in Ottawa, the daughter of an off ...
,
Mary Boland Mary Boland (born Marie Anne Boland; January 28, 1882 – June 23, 1965) was an American stage and film actress. Early years Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Boland was the daughter of repertory actor William Augustus Boland, and his wife M ...
, Florence Nash, and
Virginia Grey Virginia Grey (March 22, 1917 – July 31, 2004) was an American actress who appeared in over 100 films and a number of radio and television shows from the 1930s to the early 1980s. Biography Grey was born on March 22, 1917, in Edendale, Calif ...
.
Marjorie Main Mary Tomlinson (February 24, 1890 – April 10, 1975), professionally known as Marjorie Main, was an American character actress and singer of the Classical Hollywood period, best known as a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player in the 1940s and 1 ...
and
Phyllis Povah Phyllis Povah (July 21, 1893 – August 7, 1975) was an American stage and film actress. Career Povah made her Broadway theatre debut in ''Mr. Pim Passes By'' in 1921 and acted in minor roles in several productions over the next two decades a ...
also appear, reprising their stage roles from the play.
Ruth Hussey Ruth Carol Hussey (October 30, 1911 – April 19, 2005) was an American actress best known for her Academy Award-nominated role as photographer Elizabeth Imbrie in '' The Philadelphia Story''. Early life Hussey was born in Providence, Rhode I ...
,
Virginia Weidler Virginia Anna Adeleid Weidler (March 21, 1927 – July 1, 1968) was an American child actress, popular in Hollywood films during the 1930s and 1940s. Early life and career Weidler was born on March 21, 1927, in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles County, C ...
,
Butterfly McQueen Butterfly McQueen (born Thelma McQueen; January 8, 1911December 22, 1995) was an American actress. Originally a dancer, McQueen first appeared in films as "Prissy" in ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939). She was unable to attend the film's premiere be ...
,
Theresa Harris Theresa Harris (December 31, 1906 – October 8, 1985) was an American television and film actress, singer and dancer. Early life Harris was born on New Year's Eve 1906 (some sources indicate 1909) in Houston, Texas, to Isaiah and Mable Harris ...
, and
Hedda Hopper Hedda Hopper (born Elda Furry; May 2, 1885February 1, 1966) was an American gossip columnist and actress. At the height of her influence in the 1940s, her readership was 35 million. A strong supporter of the House Un-American Activities Committ ...
also appear in smaller roles. Fontaine was the last surviving actress with a credited role in the film; she died in 2013. The film continued the play's all-female tradition—the entire cast of more than 130 speaking roles was female. Set in the glamorous Manhattan apartments of high society evoked by
Cedric Gibbons Austin Cedric Gibbons (March 23, 1890 – July 26, 1960) was an Irish-American art director for the film industry. He also made a significant contribution to motion picture theater architecture from the 1930s to 1950s. Gibbons designed the ...
, and in Reno, Nevada, where they obtain their divorces, it presents an acidic commentary on the pampered lives and power struggles of various rich, bored wives and other women they come into contact with. Filmed in black and white, it includes a six-minute fashion parade filmed in
Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...
, featuring
Adrian Adrian is a form of the Latin given name Adrianus or Hadrianus. Its ultimate origin is most likely via the former river Adria from the Venetic and Illyrian word ''adur'', meaning "sea" or "water". The Adria was until the 8th century BC the mai ...
's most ''outré ''designs; often cut in modern screenings, it has been restored by Turner Classic Movies. On DVD, the original black-and-white fashion show, which is a different take, is available for the first time. Throughout ''The Women'', not a single male character is seen or heard. The attention to detail was such that even in props such as portraits, only female figures are represented, and several animals which appeared as pets were also female. The only exceptions are a poster-drawing of a bull in the fashion show segment, a framed portrait of Stephen Haines as a boy, a figurine on Mary's night stand, and an advertisement on the back of the magazine Peggy reads at Mary's house before lunch that contains a photograph of
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr Douglas Elton Fairbanks Jr., (December 9, 1909 – May 7, 2000) was an American actor, producer and decorated naval officer of World War II. He is best known for starring in such films as ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' (1937), '' Gunga Din'' (1939) ...
.


Plot

The film is a scathing look at a group of Manhattan women and the scores of women who work for them. It centers on Mary Haines, the cheerful, contented wife of Stephen and mother of Little Mary, and her circle of "friends". Mary's cousin Sylvia Fowler goes to Sydney's elite salon to get the latest nail color: Jungle Red. Olga, the manicurist, reveals that Mary's husband has been "stepping out"  with a predatory perfume counter girl named Crystal Allen. Sylvia eagerly shares the news with Mary's friends and sets Mary up with Olga. Mary is shattered to learn about Stephen's infidelity. Her wise mother urges patience and takes Mary to Bermuda with her, so she can take time to think. When they return, Mary goes to a couturier for a fitting. Crystal appears, ordering expensive clothes. Stephen is now keeping her.  At Sylvia's insistence, Mary confronts Crystal, who slyly suggests that Mary keep the status quo unless she wants to lose Stephen in a divorce. Heartbroken and humiliated, Mary leaves. The gossip continues, exacerbated by Sylvia and their friend Edith, who turns the affair into a public scandal by recounting Sylvia's version of the story to a gossip columnist. Mary decides to divorce her husband despite his efforts to make her stay. As she packs to leave for Reno, Mary explains the divorce to Little Mary, who weeps alone in the bathroom. On the train to Reno, Mary meets three women with the same destination and purpose: the dramatic, extravagant Countess de Lave; Miriam Aarons, a tough-cookie chorus girl; and, to her surprise, her shy young friend Peggy Day, who has been pushed into divorce by Sylvia. They all settle in at a Reno ranch, where they get plenty of commonsense advice from Lucy, the gruff, warm-hearted woman who runs the ranch. The Countess tells tales of her multiple husbands and seems to have found another prospect in a cowboy named Buck Winston. Miriam has been having an affair with Sylvia Fowler's husband and plans to marry him. Peggy discovers that she is pregnant, calls her husband and happily plans to hurry home. Sylvia arrives at the ranch; Howard is suing her, thanks to recorded evidence of mental cruelty. When she discovers that Miriam is the next Mrs. Fowler, she attacks her, and a fight ensues. Mary's divorce comes through, but Miriam tries to convince her that she should forget her pride and call Stephen. Before Mary can decide, Stephen calls to inform Mary that he and Crystal have just been married. Two years later, Crystal, now Mrs. Haines, is taking a bubble bath and talking on the phone to her lover, Buck Winston, now a radio star and married to the Countess. Little Mary overhears the conversation before being shooed away by Crystal. Sylvia picks up the phone and hears the voice of Crystal's lover. Mary hosts a dinner for her Reno buddies and her Manhattan friends—excepting Sylvia—celebrating Buck and the Countess's second anniversary. The Countess, Miriam, and Peggy urge Mary to come along to a nightclub, but she stays home. Little Mary inadvertently reveals how unhappy Stephen is and mentions Crystal's "lovey dovey" talk with Buck on the telephone. Mary is transformed, crying "I've had two years to grow claws, Mother—Jungle Red!" In the nightclub's ladies' lounge, Mary worms the details out of Sylvia, and gets the news to a gossip columnist (played by
Hedda Hopper Hedda Hopper (born Elda Furry; May 2, 1885February 1, 1966) was an American gossip columnist and actress. At the height of her influence in the 1940s, her readership was 35 million. A strong supporter of the House Un-American Activities Committ ...
). Mary tells the Countess that her husband Buck has been having an affair with Crystal, then informs Crystal that everyone knows what she has been doing. Crystal does not care. Mary can have Stephen back, since she will now have Buck to support her. The weeping Countess reveals that she has been funding Buck's radio career and that without her, he will be penniless and jobless. Crystal resigns herself to the fact that she will be heading back to the perfume counter, adding: "And by the way, there's a name for you ladies, but it isn't used in high society—outside of a kennel." Mary, triumphant, heads out the door, arms wide open to receive Stephen.


Cast

File:Norma Shearer in The Women trailer 1.jpg, Norma Shearer File:Joan Crawford in The Women.jpg, Joan Crawford File:Rosalind Russell in The Women trailer 2.jpg, Rosalind Russell File:Paulette Goddard in The Women trailer.jpg, Paulette Goddard File:Joan Fontaine in The Women trailer.jpg, Joan Fontaine File:Mary Boland in The Women trailer.jpg, Mary Boland File:Virginia Weidler in The Women trailer.jpg, Virginia Weidler File:Virginia Grey in The Women trailer.jpg, Virginia Grey File:Phyllis Povah in The Women trailer.jpg, Phyllis Povah File:Lucile Watson in The Women trailer.jpg, Lucille Watson File:Marjorie Main in The Women trailer.jpg, Marjorie Main


Production

In January 1937, producers Harry M. Goetz and Max Gordon bought the film rights to the play for $125,000 and planned on turning it into a
Claudette Colbert Claudette Colbert ( ; born Émilie Claudette Chauchoin; September 13, 1903July 30, 1996) was an American actress. Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the late 1920s and progressed to films with the advent of talking pictures ...
vehicle, with
Gregory LaCava Gregory La Cava (March 10, 1892 – March 1, 1952) was an American film director of Italian descent best known for his films of the 1930s, including '' My Man Godfrey'' and ''Stage Door'', which earned him nominations for Academy Award for Bes ...
as the director. In March 1938,
Norma Shearer Edith Norma Shearer (August 11, 1902June 12, 1983) was a Canadian-American actress who was active on film from 1919 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated ingénues. She appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'N ...
and Carole Lombard were in negotiations to star. It was rumored that MGM sought to bring back
Marion Davies Marion Davies (born Marion Cecilia Douras; January 3, 1897 – September 22, 1961) was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Educated in a religious convent, Davies fled the school to pursue a career as a chorus girl ...
for the role of Sylvia Fowler, but she declined. In November 1938, it was announced
Jane Murfin Jane Murfin (October 27, 1884 – August 10, 1955) was an American playwright and screenwriter. The author of several successful plays, she wrote some of them with actress Jane Cowl—most notably '' Smilin' Through'' (1919), which was adapted ...
was busy writing the film's screenplay at MGM.
Virginia Weidler Virginia Anna Adeleid Weidler (March 21, 1927 – July 1, 1968) was an American child actress, popular in Hollywood films during the 1930s and 1940s. Early life and career Weidler was born on March 21, 1927, in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles County, C ...
was cast on April 24, 1939.
F. Scott Fitzgerald Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...
worked on the script early on in the process, but was uncredited. Cast member Florence Nash's sister Mary Nash had starred in a 1911 play called ''The Woman''. After the opening credits the film offers a preview of—and insight into—the principal characters with shots of animals that dissolve to shots of the women, with appropriate music. Mary is a doe, Crystal a panting leopard, Sylvia a snarling black cat, Flora a monkey, Miriam a vixen (female fox), Peggy a lamb, Mary's mother an owl, Edith a cow chewing its cud, Lucy a neighing horse. TCM.com incorrectly identifies the leopard as a lion and the fox as a wolf.All of the animals in the picture are female. ''The New York Times'' reported on Cukor's strategies for managing a cast of 135 women led by three famously demanding stars. He described one technique for dealing with precedence: He made sure that all three stars were called to set simultaneously, either by sending separate staff to knock on their dressing room doors at the identical moment, or by calling "Ready ladies!" so all could hear. This system lapsed only once, and the offended star (not named) remained in her dressing room for a very long time. When it comes to bloopers, the film contains a fine example of misused stock footage. The film transitions from Little Mary weeping in the bathroom over the news of the divorce through an
establishing shot An establishing shot in filmmaking and television production sets up, or establishes, the context for a scene by showing the relationship between its important figures and objects. It is generally a long or extreme-long shot at the beginning of ...
—a night scene of a train speeding through a desert in the far West—to the compartment where Mary consoles a weeping Peggy. Peggy barely managed to catch the train for
Reno Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...
. It is the first night out, and the train is nowhere near the West. The journey from New York to Reno took three full days at the time (and was no faster in 2013). The same desert shot had been used appropriately three years before, in ''
After the Thin Man ''After the Thin Man'' is a 1936 American murder mystery comedy film directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starring William Powell, Myrna Loy and James Stewart. A sequel to the 1934 feature ''The Thin Man'', the film presents Powell and Loy as Dashiel ...
'', as
Nick and Nora Charles Nick and Nora Charles are fictional characters created by Dashiell Hammett in his novel ''The Thin Man''. The characters were later adapted for film in a series of films between 1934 and 1947; for radio from 1941 to 1950; for television from 1957 ...
near the end of their two-day trip to California.


Technicolor fashion show

''The Women'' has one sequence in
Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...
, a fashion show. When interviewed by TCM host
Robert Osborne Robert Jolin Osborne (; May 3, 1932 – March 6, 2017) was an American film historian, television presenter, author, actor and the primary host for more than 20 years of the cable channel Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Prior to hosting at TCM, Os ...
, director George Cukor stated that he did not like the sequence and that he wanted to remove it from the film. ''New York Times'' critic
Frank Nugent Frank Stanley Nugent (May 27, 1908 – December 29, 1965) was an American screenwriter, journalist, and film reviewer, who wrote 21 film scripts, 11 for director John Ford. He wrote almost a thousand reviews for ''The New York Times'' before lea ...
agreed with this assessment. In his September 22, 1939, review of the film, he reported that "a style show in Technicolor...may be lovely—at least that's what most of the women around us seemed to think—but has no place in the picture. Why not a diving exhibition or a number by the Rockettes? It is the only mark against George Cukor's otherwise shrewd and sentient direction." In 2018, British critic
Peter Bradshaw Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''. Early life and education Bradshaw was educated at Haberdashers ...
describes the “remarkable” technicolor fashion show as “a mesmeric, wordless interlude that appears to allude to the nature of these women’s lives. It starts with jolly outdoor scenes, almost pastoral, but then descends into moody nightclub darkness, a world of metropolitan chic and brooding sensuality. I can only compare it to the nightmare in
Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
's ''Spellbound''.”


Reception

The film was commercially successful and was cited as one of the best of the year. Although it received no
Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
nominations, many critics now describe it as one of the major films of what was a stellar year in Hollywood film production. The New York Times critic Frank Nugent praised the film with characteristic wit:
"...(G)oing and coming to syrupy movies, we lose our sense of balance...Miss Boothe...has dipped her pen in venom. Metro, without alkalizing it too much, has fed it to a company of actresses who normally are so sweet that butter (as the man says) would not melt in their mouths. And, instead of gasping and clutching at their throats, the women—bless 'em—have downed it without blinking, have gone on a glorious cat-clawing rampage and have turned in one of the merriest pictures of the season...(Boothe's) sociological investigation of the scalpel-tongued Park Avenue set...is a ghoulish and disillusioning business, and the drama critics, when first they saw the play, turned away in chivalrous horror...Possibly some of that venom has been lost in the screen translation...The omissions are not terribly important, and some of the new sequences are so good Miss Boothe might have thought of them herself. ...The most heartening part of it all, though, aside from the pleasure we derive from hearing witty lines crackle on the screen, is the way Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard and the others have leaped at the chance to be vixens. ... even Miss Shearer's Mary sharpens her talons finally and joins the birds of prey...(in) one of the best performances she has given. Rosalind Russell, who usually is sympathetic as all-get-out, is flawless...as the archprowler in the Park Avenue jungle. (all the actors are) all so knowing, so keen on their jobs and so successful in bringing them off that we don't know when we've ever seen such a terrible collection of women. They're really appallingly good, and so is their picture."
Leonard Maltin gives the film 3 1/2 out of 4 stars: "All-star (and all-female) cast shines in this hilarious adaptation of Clare Boothe play about divorce, cattiness, and competition in circle of "friends.'' Crawford has one of her best roles..." In 2018,
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
's
Peter Bradshaw Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''. Early life and education Bradshaw was educated at Haberdashers ...
gave five out of five stars to "this extraordinary, almost Daliesque comedy...the absence of men has its own kind of ethical implication. It is a sort of abandonment, and the drama's no-men structure is a satirical comment on their emotional distance. Around this drama of duplicity and infidelity, Cukor creates a brilliant spectacle, halted by Shearer's moments of stunningly serious emotional devastation. On
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, ''The Women'' holds a 94% "Fresh" rating from 62 reviews.


Box office

According to MGM records the film earned $1,610,000 in the US and Canada and $660,000 elsewhere but because of its high production cost ultimately incurred a loss of $262,000. However, the film was re-released in 1947 and earned a small profit of $52,000.


Cultural impact

In 2007, ''The Women'' was selected for preservation in the United States
National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...
by the
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Actress Anna Kendrick considers the film to be her favorite film to watch, calling it "a wildly funny all female cast and a female writer. I revisit it almost every year and my appreciation for the performances and the writing grows." She reiterated her love for the film several years later.


Parody

On his November 5, 1939, radio broadcast, Jack Benny presented a sketch parody of ''The Women'' with all the male cast members in female roles and
Mary Livingstone Mary Livingstone (born Sadya Marcowitz, later known as Sadie Marks; June 25, 1905–June 30, 1983) was an American radio comedienne and actress. She was the wife and radio partner of comedian Jack Benny. Enlisted casually to perform on her h ...
as the announcer.


Remakes

''The Women'' was remade as a 1956 musical comedy titled ''
The Opposite Sex ''The Opposite Sex'' is a 1956 American musical romantic comedy film shot in Metrocolor and CinemaScope. The film was directed by David Miller and stars June Allyson, Joan Collins, Dolores Gray, Ann Sheridan, and Ann Miller, with Leslie Ni ...
'', starring June Allyson,
Joan Collins Dame Joan Henrietta Collins (born 23 May 1933) is an English actress, author and columnist. Collins is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a People's Choice Award, two Soap Opera Digest Awards and a Primetime ...
, and Ann Miller. In 1960, MGM toyed with the idea of doing an all-male remake of ''The Women'' which would have been entitled, ''Gentlemen's Club''. Like the female version, this would have involved an all masculine cast and the plot would have involved a man ( Jeffrey Hunter) who recently discovers among his friends that his wife is having an affair with another man (
Earl Holliman Henry Earl Holliman (born September 11, 1928) is an American actor, animal-rights activist, and singer known for his many character roles in films, mostly Westerns and dramas, in the 1950s and 1960s. He won a Golden Globe Award for the film ' ...
) and after going to Reno to file for divorce and begin a new life, he later finds himself doing what he can to rectify matters later on when he discovers that the other man is only interested in money and position and he decides to win his true love back again. Although nothing ever came of this, it would have consisted of the following ensemble: Jeffrey Hunter (Martin Heal), Earl Holliman (Christopher Allen),
Tab Hunter Tab Hunter (born Arthur Andrew Kelm; July 11, 1931 – July 8, 2018) was an American actor, singer, film producer, and author. Known for his blond, clean-cut good looks, Hunter starred in more than forty films. He was a Hollywood heartthrob of t ...
(Simon Fowler),
Lew Ayres Lewis Frederick Ayres III (December 28, 1908 – December 30, 1996) was an American actor whose film and television career spanned 65 years. He is best known for starring as German soldier Paul Bäumer in the film '' All Quiet on the Western Fr ...
(Count Vancott),
Robert Wagner Robert John Wagner Jr. (born February 10, 1930) is an American actor of stage, screen, and television. He is known for starring in the television shows '' It Takes a Thief'' (1968–1970), ''Switch'' (1975–1978), and '' Hart to Hart'' (1979 ...
(Mitchell Aarons),
James Garner James Garner (born James Scott Bumgarner; April 7, 1928 – July 19, 2014) was an American actor. He played leading roles in more than 50 theatrical films, including '' The Great Escape'' (1963) with Steve McQueen; Paddy Chayefsky's ''The Ameri ...
(Peter Day),
Jerry Mathers Gerald Patrick Mathers (born June 2, 1948) is an American actor best known for his role in the television sitcom '' Leave It to Beaver'', originally broadcast from 1957 to 1963, in which he played the protagonist Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver, the y ...
(Little Martin),
James Stewart James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military pilot. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality h ...
(Mr. Heal),
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
(Larry),
Troy Donahue Troy Donahue (born Merle Johnson Jr., January 27, 1936 – September 2, 2001) was an American film and television actor and singer. He was a popular sex symbol in the 1950s and 1960s. Biography Early years Born in New York City, Donahue was ...
(Norman Blake), and
Stuart Whitman Stuart Maxwell Whitman (February 1, 1928 – March 16, 2020) was an American actor, known for his lengthy career in film and television. Whitman was born in San Francisco and raised in New York until the age of 12, when his family relocated to ...
(Oliver, the bartender who spills the beans about the illicit affair). In 1977 it was remade by
Rainer Werner Fassbinder Rainer Werner Fassbinder (; 31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982), sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder, was a German filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the major figures and catalysts of the New German Cinema movement. Fassbinder's main ...
for German television as ''Women in New York''. In 2008,
Diane English Diane English (born May 18, 1948) is an American screenwriter, producer and director, best known for creating the television show '' Murphy Brown'' and writing and directing the 2008 feature film '' The Women''. Early life English was born in Bu ...
wrote and directed a remake of the same title, her feature film directorial debut. The comedy starred
Meg Ryan Meg Ryan (born Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra; November 19, 1961) is an American actress. She began her acting career in 1981 when she made her acting debut in the drama film ''Rich and Famous''. She later joined the cast of the CBS soap oper ...
,
Eva Mendes Eva de la Caridad Méndez (, ; born March 5, 1974), known professionally as Eva Mendes, is an American actress, model and fashion designer. Her acting career began in the late 1990s, with a series of roles in films such as '' Children of the Cor ...
,
Annette Bening Annette Carol Bening (born May 29, 1958) is an American actress. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over four decades, including a British Academy Film Award and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominat ...
,
Jada Pinkett Smith Jada Koren Pinkett Smith (; née Pinkett; born September 18, 1971) is an American actress and talk show host. She is co-host of the Facebook Watch talk show '' Red Table Talk'', for which she has received a Daytime Emmy Award. ''Time'' named ...
,
Bette Midler Bette Midler (;''Inside the Actors Studio'', 2004 born December 1, 1945) is an American singer, actress, comedian and author. Throughout her career, which spans over five decades, Midler has received List of awards and nominations received by Be ...
, and
Debra Messing Debra Lynn Messing (born August 15, 1968) is an American actress. After graduating from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Messing received short-lived roles on television series such as '' Ned and Stacey'' on Fox (1995–1997) and ...
, and was released in 2008 by Picturehouse Entertainment, a sister company to Warner Bros. (the current owners of the 1939 version through Turner Entertainment). It holds a 13 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.


References


External links

* * * * *
''The Women'' – Past and Present
at LaFemmeReel.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Women 1939 films 1939 comedy-drama films 1930s American films 1930s buddy comedy films 1930s English-language films American black-and-white films American buddy comedy-drama films American female buddy films American films based on plays Films about adultery in the United States Films directed by George Cukor Films featuring an all-female cast Films partially in color Films scored by Edward Ward (composer) Films set in New York City Films set in Reno, Nevada Films with screenplays by Anita Loos Films with screenplays by Jane Murfin Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films United States National Film Registry films