Craig's Wife (1936)
A complicated melodrama, filled with spite, jealousy, infidelity, and murder. And with sharp acting, especially from Rosalind Russell. Director Dorothy Azner seems to be at her best here, from a career of almost excellent dramas with interesting side issues. This is clearly a battle of the strengths, of servants wanting to maintain personal integrity, of husbands figuring out what is happening with their wives, and of wives most of all, and Russell's charater, the title character, with a conniving, disdainful maneuvering that is what makes (here) a society woman's wife. There is sympathy most of all for the jilted men here, but there is an implication that the women are bored and due some kind of control over their destiny, rightfully. This isn't easy stuff, easy to digest or easy to film in an early Code movie. But it's worth trying and credit to everyone. Very much worth watching. It's a woman's movie, whatever that has come to mean in the 21st Century, and it is seen from the point of view of women, which makes it of increasing interest. There is no mention of the Depression here. These are people clearly little affected by it. I wonder what kind of audience it was aimed at. Maybe just anyone looking for a good movie, a good story. Of minor note is the cinematographer, Lucian Ballard, who is in charge of one of his first films. And it's a competant but unremarkable job. (Compare to the screwball drama of the same year, also mostly interior shots, "My Man Godfrey" filmed by Ted Tezlaff.) This in part points to one of Arzner's weaknesses, in my small view-that she was a literary director, interested in content and story over the visual drama possible in movies.(Ballard became admired for his widescreen work two decades later.) Ballard films this in what I think of as a "Dinner at Eight" mode that delivers the series of acts intelligently and intelligibly, in that mid-30s mode between the drama of early Warner Brothers and the polished richness of 1940s films of all kinds. Arzner seems to set up each short scene as a moment to create interplay between characters almost independ of the space around them. Eventually this emphasizes a choppy progression of facts, which gradually builds into a progression of emotional reactions. And that isn't really the best way to build intensity, and the plot really suggests and demands intensity. So, if you watch this, you will likely study it and absorb the information rather than get swept away. Which still makes for a really full experience. And, to go back to where I started, a complicated melodrama. And with sharp writing throughout.
A complicated melodrama, filled with spite, jealousy, infidelity, and murder. And with sharp acting, especially from Rosalind Russell. Director Dorothy Azner seems to be at her best here, from a career of almost excellent dramas with interesting side issues. This is clearly a battle of the strengths, of servants wanting to maintain personal integrity, of husbands figuring out what is happening with their wives, and of wives most of all, and Russell's charater, the title character, with a conniving, disdainful maneuvering that is what makes (here) a society woman's wife. There is sympathy most of all for the jilted men here, but there is an implication that the women are bored and due some kind of control over their destiny, rightfully. This isn't easy stuff, easy to digest or easy to film in an early Code movie. But it's worth trying and credit to everyone. Very much worth watching. It's a woman's movie, whatever that has come to mean in the 21st Century, and it is seen from the point of view of women, which makes it of increasing interest. There is no mention of the Depression here. These are people clearly little affected by it. I wonder what kind of audience it was aimed at. Maybe just anyone looking for a good movie, a good story. Of minor note is the cinematographer, Lucian Ballard, who is in charge of one of his first films. And it's a competant but unremarkable job. (Compare to the screwball drama of the same year, also mostly interior shots, "My Man Godfrey" filmed by Ted Tezlaff.) This in part points to one of Arzner's weaknesses, in my small view-that she was a literary director, interested in content and story over the visual drama possible in movies.(Ballard became admired for his widescreen work two decades later.) Ballard films this in what I think of as a "Dinner at Eight" mode that delivers the series of acts intelligently and intelligibly, in that mid-30s mode between the drama of early Warner Brothers and the polished richness of 1940s films of all kinds. Arzner seems to set up each short scene as a moment to create interplay between characters almost independ of the space around them. Eventually this emphasizes a choppy progression of facts, which gradually builds into a progression of emotional reactions. And that isn't really the best way to build intensity, and the plot really suggests and demands intensity. So, if you watch this, you will likely study it and absorb the information rather than get swept away. Which still makes for a really full experience. And, to go back to where I started, a complicated melodrama. And with sharp writing throughout.