Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 3-April-05
Spoiler Rating: Medium

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

If "Desperate Housewives" is anything like "A Letter to Three Wives" I can understand why it's such a big hit. This study of women pondering their marriages has the juicy stuff like money and adultery and the sappy stuff like underdogs and true love, all seasoned with wit, social commentary, and the glamour of Hollywood. As with most ensemble pieces, some threads shine more than others, but on the whole the film is a delectable peek behind the closed doors of the average American female in the postwar suburban world.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz was a double Oscar-winner for "A Letter to Three Wives," taking home statues for both directing and screenplay, but it's the generally fine cast that keeps the audience from returning this "Letter" to sender (which, in my case, would be Netflix). Interestingly, however, the character who drives the action is never seen. The narrator is a catty vixen who notifies three acquaintances on an outing that by the time they get home she will have run away with one of their husbands. This causes the youngest wife (Jeanne Crain) to agonize that she's too rustic for her (supposedly) sophisticated Prince Charming and recall with horror how she embarrassed herself when debuting amongst his friends. Crain is rather flat, making hers the weakest segment of the film, but her story leads nicely into that of sassy Rita Phipps (Ann Sothern), a schlock radio writer and mother of two who married her childhood sweetheart and has never looked back — until now. Rita's source of worry stems from the competing claims of practical finance and personal integrity, the latter of which is represented by her brilliant and utterly desirable husband George (Kirk Douglas), who temporarily steals the show with a tirade against commercialism and the dumbing-down of popular culture.

George is a terrific character who depicts wedlock as the finest form of friendship, and he's matched in luster only by the third wife, Lora Mae Hollingsway (Linda Darnell), who's a different kind of animal altogether. Smart, sexy, and tough, Lora Mae grew up on the wrong side of the tracks (almost on the tracks, actually) and caught a ride to greener pastures by seducing the hell out of her boss (Paul Douglas), who initially thought he could use her and throw her away. Now set up like a queen but still wanting more, she greets the news that her husband might have left her with outward contempt and inward trepidation; by going over the history of their union, she understands it clearly for the first time. Darnell is a knockout in both the physical and artistic sense, and she brings the focus back from George onto the women in question just in time for the revealing finale.

"A Letter to Three Wives" is essentially a melodrama foreshadowing the lavish soap operas of Douglas Sirk, but it feels real even 50 years after its release. Love, ambition, insecurity — these things will never go out of style, and this DVD arrives as a welcome reminder of that fact.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.