A Letter to Three Wives
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz; adapted by Vera Caspary from a novel by John Klempner
1949/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Sadie: If I was you, I’d show more o’ what I got. Maybe wear somethin’ with beads.
Lora Mae Hollingsway: What I got don’t need beads.[/box]
If you can look past the 1949 gender politics, you will find a very sly comedy of manners.
The story takes place in an upper-middle class enclave in the suburb of a big city. Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain) is the farm girl who joined the WAVES and found love with a wealthy officer to whom she is now married. Rita Phipps (Ann Southern) writes soap operas for the radio and now makes more money than her intellectual college professor husband George (Kirk Douglas). Lora Mae (Linda Darnell) used her considerable looks and cunning to escape existence on the other side of the tracks by hooking crude but wealthy chain store owner Porter Hollingsway (Paul Douglas). An unseen presence is Addie Ross (voiced by Celeste Holm) who is admired by all the men as a model of taste and “class” and naturally despised by all the wives.Just as the three friends are about to leave for a picnic on an island without a telephone, they get a note from Addie saying she is leaving town for good and taking one of their husbands with her. Each of the women has all day to ponder the state of her marriage and look back on the possible reasons they might have to lose their man.
Deborah remembers her first cocktail party at the country club where she appeared in a disaster of a dress and juiced to the gills to calm her fears. Rita thinks about a dinner party for her philistine boss and George’s rant about mass media. Lora Mae looks back at her “courtship” with Porter. All the women will have a shot at redemption. With Thelma Ritter to provide a constant backdrop of wisecracks.
The Mankiewicz dialogue is a razor sharp, if a little stagy, and all three actresses sparkle. Darnell and Paul Douglas’s bickering exchanges are classic. Recommended to all those looking for a good time.
A Letter to Three Wives picked up Oscars for Best Director and Best Writing, Original Screenplay. It was nominated for Best Picture.
Trailer
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