The Women | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | George Cukor |
Produced by | Hunt Stromberg |
Screenplay by |
Anita Loos Jane Murfin |
Based on |
The Women 1936 play by Clare Boothe Luce |
Starring |
Norma Shearer Joan Crawford Rosalind Russell |
Music by |
David Snell Edward Ward |
Cinematography |
Joseph Ruttenberg Oliver T. Marsh |
Edited by | Robert Kern |
Production
company |
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Distributed by | Loew's Inc. |
Release date
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Running time
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133 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English Italian |
Budget | $1,688,000 |
Box office | $2,270,000 |
The Women is a 1939 American comedy-drama film directed by George Cukor. The film is based on Clare Boothe Luce's play of the same name, and was adapted for the screen by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin, who had to make the film acceptable for the Production Code for it to be released.
The film stars Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Lucile Watson, Mary Boland, Florence Nash, and Virginia Grey, as well as Marjorie Main and Phyllis Povah, the last two of whom reprised their stage roles from the play. Ruth Hussey, Virginia Weidler, Butterfly McQueen, and Hedda Hopper also appeared 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, and in Reno, 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.