A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
Oh, a real "woman's picture," if a little sideways. Think of it--one of these three women is possibly going to lose her husband, but they all go on a little charity jaunt all day anyway, that payphone only a tease, not really an option. Is it because of confidence? Yes, but not in their men. Confidence in themselves.
Almost.
The opening: a sultry female voice-over waxes in sharp grey shades of film noir--merely grey because it's a cheery morning along the Hudson, and her tone is catty, and we are filled with curiosity rather than dread. But it hooks you. The plot contrivance (a good one, it turns out), is from a "Cosmopolitan Magazine novel," and that means pre-Helen Gurley Brown Cosmo, so there are enough guarded pricks and foils and twists to warrant a whole weekend of soaps, condensed here in 103 minutes. And then there are the serious issues of a woman's role in post-war America, at least relative to her man. It's good stuff, and not insensitive.
Not that this is quite a masterpiece--the scene where everyone is bored listening to the radio is truly boring for us, too, the low point--but elsewhere it has lots of charming quirks and truly warm sentiment right from the start. And there is consistent acting (Kirk Douglas, for one, is a charmer). So hang in there, it really does get better as it goes. As the present tense plot dissolves three times into flashbacks, one for each couple, the stories build, and intertwine, so that by the third flashback there is genuine suspense and beauty to the whole structure. Ending up back in the present, the sentiment doesn't get cheap or facile, nor, luckily, sentimental.
And there is Addie Ross, the fourth woman, heard and never seen, a paradigm of the unattainable, the "perfect" woman that three men are still vaguely in love with even though married to three other women, the wives of the title. Cocky, unperturbed Addie is what every wife fears, and sometimes should fear, but then, every man should be aware that women will fear whatever "other" woman is on hand, whether or not she really fits that role (such is jealousy). Addie becomes a kind of virtual femme fatale, and we see the back of her picture frame and almost see the back of her, once, on a patio (I wonder who that actress was!). And men, then and now--I mean, really, shouldn't they should compensate? If they can.
The director and screenwriter, Joseph L. Mankiewicz (who won Best Director for both roles) may have been hand-tied by the whole situation, one flashback after another (there were four originally, down from five in the book), but the three eventually assemble beautifully. By necessity, after all this buildup, the final, key twist is bold and convincing--when one of the husbands really does leave his wife, earlier in the day, for an affair with the unseen paradigm, his appearance with his wife at the country club dance that night is meant to prove how much he loves her. And she realizes it. In a way, what the irresistible Addis Ross manages is to make all three couples appreciate what they have, leaving her out. Go Cosmo.
Amazingly, two key characters went uncredited: Thelma Ritter as a house servant and Celeste Holm doing the voice. The director springboarded from Three Wives to his most legendary film, All About Eve, the next year, and gave both Ritter and Holm important roles (and earned himself another Oscar for direction). Alfred Newman did the music for both films, and notice in this one how it assumes an important supporting role, helping us read the scenes as they unfold.
I'm not sure if love triumphs, or luck, or humor, but something makes everyone relatively rosy. It's a mixed-up feel-good melodrama. There is some of that post-war pressure for women to be at home, for sure, but Douglas's wife only concedes her weekends to that, and not as a submissive housewife. Douglas is more the homebody, comfy with his books. Even the apparent mismatch, between the successful, brash retailer and the much-too-young woman who clearly likes her things fancy, is made good by some kind of true love, not mere lust. I think. Don't prejudge these wives, or their husbands, and all will be well.
Oh, a real "woman's picture," if a little sideways. Think of it--one of these three women is possibly going to lose her husband, but they all go on a little charity jaunt all day anyway, that payphone only a tease, not really an option. Is it because of confidence? Yes, but not in their men. Confidence in themselves.
Almost.
The opening: a sultry female voice-over waxes in sharp grey shades of film noir--merely grey because it's a cheery morning along the Hudson, and her tone is catty, and we are filled with curiosity rather than dread. But it hooks you. The plot contrivance (a good one, it turns out), is from a "Cosmopolitan Magazine novel," and that means pre-Helen Gurley Brown Cosmo, so there are enough guarded pricks and foils and twists to warrant a whole weekend of soaps, condensed here in 103 minutes. And then there are the serious issues of a woman's role in post-war America, at least relative to her man. It's good stuff, and not insensitive.
Not that this is quite a masterpiece--the scene where everyone is bored listening to the radio is truly boring for us, too, the low point--but elsewhere it has lots of charming quirks and truly warm sentiment right from the start. And there is consistent acting (Kirk Douglas, for one, is a charmer). So hang in there, it really does get better as it goes. As the present tense plot dissolves three times into flashbacks, one for each couple, the stories build, and intertwine, so that by the third flashback there is genuine suspense and beauty to the whole structure. Ending up back in the present, the sentiment doesn't get cheap or facile, nor, luckily, sentimental.
And there is Addie Ross, the fourth woman, heard and never seen, a paradigm of the unattainable, the "perfect" woman that three men are still vaguely in love with even though married to three other women, the wives of the title. Cocky, unperturbed Addie is what every wife fears, and sometimes should fear, but then, every man should be aware that women will fear whatever "other" woman is on hand, whether or not she really fits that role (such is jealousy). Addie becomes a kind of virtual femme fatale, and we see the back of her picture frame and almost see the back of her, once, on a patio (I wonder who that actress was!). And men, then and now--I mean, really, shouldn't they should compensate? If they can.
The director and screenwriter, Joseph L. Mankiewicz (who won Best Director for both roles) may have been hand-tied by the whole situation, one flashback after another (there were four originally, down from five in the book), but the three eventually assemble beautifully. By necessity, after all this buildup, the final, key twist is bold and convincing--when one of the husbands really does leave his wife, earlier in the day, for an affair with the unseen paradigm, his appearance with his wife at the country club dance that night is meant to prove how much he loves her. And she realizes it. In a way, what the irresistible Addis Ross manages is to make all three couples appreciate what they have, leaving her out. Go Cosmo.
Amazingly, two key characters went uncredited: Thelma Ritter as a house servant and Celeste Holm doing the voice. The director springboarded from Three Wives to his most legendary film, All About Eve, the next year, and gave both Ritter and Holm important roles (and earned himself another Oscar for direction). Alfred Newman did the music for both films, and notice in this one how it assumes an important supporting role, helping us read the scenes as they unfold.
I'm not sure if love triumphs, or luck, or humor, but something makes everyone relatively rosy. It's a mixed-up feel-good melodrama. There is some of that post-war pressure for women to be at home, for sure, but Douglas's wife only concedes her weekends to that, and not as a submissive housewife. Douglas is more the homebody, comfy with his books. Even the apparent mismatch, between the successful, brash retailer and the much-too-young woman who clearly likes her things fancy, is made good by some kind of true love, not mere lust. I think. Don't prejudge these wives, or their husbands, and all will be well.