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Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern and Jeanne Crain read over the eponymous Letter to Three Wives |
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast: Jeanne Crain (Deborah Bishop), Linda Darnell (Lora Mae
Hollingsway), Ann Sothern (Rita Phipps), Jeffrey Lynn (Brad Bishop), Paul
Douglas (Porter Hollingsway), Kirk Douglas (George Phipps), Thelma Ritter
(Sadie), Barbara Lawrence (Babe Finney), Connie Gilchrist (Ruby Finney),
Florence Bates (Mrs Manleigh), Hobart Cavanaugh (Mr Manleigh), Celeste Holm
(voice of Addie Ross)
It’s strange to think that, back in 1949, this slight story
of three women one of whose husbands might have run off with another woman (the
film’s narrator, the omnipresent Addie Ross, coolly voiced by Celeste Holm) was
garlanded with multiple Oscars. It’s the sort of material you half expect would
make an episode of Desperate Housewives
– although of course today the whole thing would have been sorted out in a few
minutes with mobile phones (A WhatsApp to
Three Wives?). What makes it work so well is Mankiewicz’s dialogue, which
lifts this slight melodrama of suburban couples into something that feels like
it has more weight and intelligence than it really does.
Anyway, our wives are a mixed bag living in a commuter town
“just outside the city”, all from middle-class or lower upper-class
backgrounds. Seconds before taking some underprivileged children for a boat
trip and picnic, insecure Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain), blowsy Lora Mae
Hollingsway (Linda Darnell) and ambitious Rita Phipps (Ann Sothern) receive a
goodbye letter from their “friend” Addie Ross, who announces she has left town
with one of their husbands. But which one? Is it Addie’s ex-boyfriend,
privileged Brad Bishop (Jeffrey Lynn), her school-yard sweetheart, academic George
(Kirk Douglas), or her admirer, businessman Porter Hollingsway (Paul Douglas)?
As the poster says, “While they wondered, one of them wandered”!
If that sounds to you like a rather small-scale storm in a teacup
– well you’d probably be right. To be honest, it’s pretty hard to care which of
these husbands might have headed into the sunset with the arch Addie Ross,
since most of the characters seem at first rather smug, self-centred or
tiresome. It takes time to warm up to these guys, but eventually Mankiewicz’s
sparkling dialogue starts to work some magic and you invest in a clichéd little
story (based, bizarrely, on a glassy magazine short story).
At one point the film was entitled A Letter to Four Wives – until studio executives decided that was
one too many (bad news for Anne Baxter who had been cast as the final wife).
That speaks to the episodic nature of the film. It has a clear five act
structure – the set up, an act establishing the backgrounds of each of the
marriages, and a final act that reveals who went where and wrapping the plot
up. It’s a simple structure, and today it’s hard to see what all the fuss was about.
Mankiewicz’s framing device for his flashbacks may be a bit
contrived, but he puts it together with skill. Each flashback is cleverly
introduced with an intriguing device where various mechanical items near the
women slowly take on a voice of their own, echoing their inner dread back to
them. It sounds a bit odd – and it is at first – but it sort of works as an
unsettling reflection of the unease of the central characters.
Once we get into the flashbacks themselves they are a mixed
bag. The weakest by far is the first, focusing on Jeannie Crain’s Deborah
Bishop. Rather plodding and dated – and forced to also introduce all the
characters – it’s a shapeless section of reflection in which Deborah comes
across unengaging, sulky, insecure and tiresome. Mind you that’s as nothing
compared to her husband Brad, played with utter forgettability by Jeffrey Lynn,
who is nothing more than a self-important idiot. Frankly, you end up thinking Deborah
might be better off without him. The sequence focuses on the possibility that
Brad might think Deborah is a little beneath him – compared to his old love
Addie – but basically serves as a teaser for the next two flashbacks and an
intro to the more interesting couples we are going to spend time with.
Our second sequence offers several comic highlights as it
follows Ann Southern and Kirk Douglas (both very good) as the Phipps,
middle-class intellectuals. George is an academic, Rita a writer for radio
soaps, and the flashback revolves around their dinner party for Rita’s bosses,
two radio-and-advert obsessed moneybags who demand the meal is interrupted so they
can listen to episodes of assorted radio shows (accompanied by a long
discussion of their advertising slots). Plenty of comic mileage comes out of
George’s irritation at their vulgarity, but also serves to demonstrate the
tensions in the Phipps marriage – George believes his wife is wasting her
talent, Rita thinks her husband isn’t taking her career seriously. But
underneath that is a nice little commentary on the insecurity of men returning
from the war to find their wives have made professional lives of their own –
and in this case, even become the main breadwinner in the household.
Our final flashback is probably the finest, around
white-goods factory owner Porter Hollingsway (a bombastic Paul Douglas, with a
touch of self-loathing) and his secretary turned wife Lora Mae (Linda Darnell, brassy
self-confidence hiding vulnerability). Largely set in Lora Mae’s family home, a
house on the wrong end of the tracks which hilariously has a train track
running past its window (which at frequent occurrences leads to the whole house
shaking, an action the family responds to with a casual familiarity). The drama
here revolves around the couple’s feelings for each other – Porter can’t
believe Lora Mae isn’t a gold digger, Lora Mae can’t believe her husband
genuinely loves her for herself – but it’s told with a real sense of comic vibe
laced with emotional truth. It’s the finest – and funniest – sequence and leads
to a pay-off that really works.
A Letter to Three Wives
maybe a little too soapy and frothy to be much more than an entertainment, but
it is at least a very entertaining one. At all times this is due to
Mankiewicz’s witty, sparkling and truthful dialogue that hums in every scene
and gives all the actors some of the best opportunities of their career. Linda
Darnell in particular is outstanding – warm, witty, fragile – but each wife has
her moments, and Kirk Douglas is charm itself as George with Paul Douglas’
fragility under the surface eventually quite moving despite his bullying
exterior. There is also fine support from Thelma Ritter among others. It’s a fine film, handsomely mounted and offers more than enough
laugh-out-loud moments and moments of sweetness to make it really work.
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