I just recently saw a new trailer of a remake of THE WOMEN, the chick flick of 1939. The new movie will star Meg Ryan, Jada Pluckett Smith and Eva Mendes will respectively take the Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell and Joan Crawford roles. I saw enough to see this will be a different movie than the original but decided to take a look back.
Once upon a time, there was a studio that was considered the Rolls Royce of the studios in the height of the studio system. That studio was called MGM. This studio had stars that had their own public persona that would what roles were given to them.
Of course, MGM had other actresses but three were considered their biggest female stars. There was Greta Garbo, the regal Swedish beauty nowhere to be found in this. The was Norma Shearer, who generally played high society ladies, at times a bit spoiled but usually showing integrity at the end. And there was Joan Crawford, the only one of the three who continued her career after 1941. Her thirties persona was that of a working girl who was also pretty much a go-getter. She would also usually show victorious virtue at the end of her movies.
It's worth noting that both Shearer and Crawford were early contenders to play Scarlet O'Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND and of course, neither played her. Cukor, who started the film, was replaced by Victor Fleming, thus freeing him to adapt the then famous Claire Booth Luce play. The resulting movie would show no man or boy throughout.
Society dame Shearer finds out her husband is having an affair with shop girl Crawford. Norma spends a lot of time at beauty parlors and fashion shows wtith wise cracking Rosalind Russell (gets the best lines), elder busy body Mary Boland, then novice Joan Fontaine and slapstick foil Paulette Goddard (then Chaplin's wife).
At their brief encounter, Crawford gives Shearer back her husband saying she got what she wanted from him and she was doing her a favor. Shearer tearfully begs over the phone for her husband to take her back. If that phone scene sounds difficult to watch, it definitely was for me. What make it worse is that Boland practically demanded that to happen. So much for women's lib for 1939.
It will be fascinating to see how the upcoming new version compares.