Norma Shearer

THE WOMEN

MGM, 1939.  Directed by George Cukor.  Camera:  Oliver Marsh.  With Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Mary Boland, Marjorie Main, Virginia Grey, Ruth Hussey, Hedda Hopper, Cora Witherspoon, Butterfly McQueen, Margaret Dumont.

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While having her nails painted "jungle red," the vindictively swivel-tongued Sylvia Fowler learns from Olga, the manicurist, that her good friend Mary Haines' husband Stephen is embroiled in an affair with perfume clerk Crystal Allen.  Mary is hosting a luncheon that afternoon, and Sylvia cannot wait to spread the good news among their Park Avenue friends, who will be there.  Soon the sweet, trusting Mary becomes the victim of vicious insinuations regarding her husband, which are made worse when Stephen calls to cancel a trip they had been planning.  Sylvia strikes the final blow by sending Mary for a jungle red manicure with Olga, who stupidly blurts out the entire story of Stephen's infidelity, not realizing that Mary is Mrs. Haines.

Mary's mother, Mrs. Morehead, counsels her to keep silent and ignore the advice of her friends but, while at a fashion show, Mary unexpectedly encounters the conniving gold digger Crystal.  Much to Sylvia's delight, the two rivals' meeting erupts into a major conflagration that makes the front page of the society columns.

Her pride wounded, Mary demands a divorce and is soon on her way to Reno.  On the train, Mary meets her confused friend, Peggy Day, who has just left her new husband, as well as Miriam Aarons and Flora, the Countess De Lave, as they all flock to Reno to file for divorce.  Soon after arriving at a dude ranch for women, they are joined by Sylvia, who has been cast aside by her husband for the kinder Miriam.

On the day that Mary's divorce is to become final, the worldly and wise Miriam sternly lectures her to forsake her pride and take back her husband, but Mary is too late, for Stephen has been ensnared by Crystal.

Two years later, Crystal, now bored with Stephen, turns to singing cowboy Buck Winston, the countess' new, young husband, for entertainment.  Mary still longs for Stephen, but has abandoned all hope of ever reconciling with him until her daughter, Little Mary, confides Stephen's misery with his new wife.  Deciding to fight finally for the man she loves with "jungle red" claws, Mary tricks Sylvia, who has become friendly with Crystal, into publicly disclosing her friend's infidelity.  With Crystal eliminated, Stephen asks to see Mary, who goes to him with open arms.

American Film Institute Catalog

Additional photo courtesy of Andrea and Gary