My point of reference for A Letter to Three Wives, the 1949 drama that won Joseph L. Mankiewicz his first of two consecutive Best Director Oscars (the second was for All About Eve), is from a late-era Simpsons parody that struck me as way too curious a premise to have originated from that show during the 2010s. It wasn’t that bad an episode from what I recall, but I’ve been interested in seeing the movie it’s based on ever since. A plot that tackles three womens’ introspection over their marriages, their dissatisfaction and issues with their husbands during a time when the nuclear family was the immaculate model is very attractive, perhaps even courageous. So when this movie showed up on the Criterion Channel as part of a series on Mankiewicz, I knew I had to finally see it.
The story, which is based off of a novella by John Klempner published in Cosmopolitan, is about three women friends, each in a fairly static marriage, who go on a riverboat cruise for a day as supervisors for a children’s field trip. As they depart, they receive a letter from their fourth “friend”, who reveals she has run off with one of their husbands, and that they won’t know which until that evening when they return. The women initially believe it to be a joke, but over the day each of them thinks back on the cracks in their relationships to determine if their husband would have been inclined to do such a thing.
Probably the most refreshing thing upfront about the film is its’ portrayal of the friendship between women -something rarely in focus in classic Hollywood, especially where it concerns suburban married women, whose lives usually revolve around their husbands. Deborah (Jeanne Crain), Rita (Ann Sothern), and Lora Mae (Linda Darnell) have an endearing, believable friendship -strong and supportive and casual. You get the sense they can be themselves more in each others’ company than in that of the husbands, whom they are generally distant from. I love the scenes that emphasize this, especially one moment wherein an anxious Deborah seeks Rita’s help to fix a wardrobe malfunction ahead of a night out with their spouses. It’s perhaps more a sense of neighbourliness that is intended in this, another part of the archetypal nuclear family idea, what with these women knowing each other through their husbands -but I can imagine them gravitating towards one another regardless.
All three actresses are really good and their personalities compliment each other wonderfully. In fact, as much of the movie hones in on their individual relationships I wish we’d gotten more of their own. It’s very much a nice discovery too, these actresses not being among the most remembered stars of their era (I’ve seen two movies between the three of them, and both were Darnell’s). I especially liked Ann Sothern, the most charismatic, funniest, and assertive of the three, yet with a sweet streak to her. She’s also got maybe the healthiest relationship with her husband George (Kirk Douglas), even though there’s a passive-aggressive resentment that runs through it. George at least shows his wife affection and doesn’t seem as obsessed with the enigmatic Addie Ross as his counterparts. Stuck with the worst of these is Lora Mae, and yet Darnell plays her with an elegance and assuredness that is similarly charming …and a wit to match Sothern’s. It’s in line with her character to be more glamourous than the other women, married to the wealthy Porter (Paul Douglas), but she never feels out of place with her friends in spite of this. It’s that same intersection of refined affluence and down-to-earth humanity that Kay Francis epitomized so well in Trouble in Paradise. Darnell plays seriously Lora Mae’s roots in poor fortune (they joke she lived on the ‘wrong side of the tracks’, but in fact she lived so adjacent to the tracks that trains have the power to rock her house when they go by), and it makes for a stronger character.
Deborah isn’t quite as compelling as her friends, her much more conventional domestic existence and insecurity about her husband’s feelings making up much of her characterization. But Jeanne Crain gives a perfectly good performance within these constraints, meant to represent the “straighter” one of this trio yet still being permitted anxiety and an interior life. All the women are granted this, and all are allowed agency beyond their marriage. Deborah and Rita in particular subvert patriarchal femininity: Deborah is a veteran, having served in the Women’s Naval Reserves during the war, and even more significantly Rita is a successful writer for radio programs who makes more than her teacher husband (hence that resentment). And though Lora Mae is generally a contented housewife, she was for a long time before her marriage a working woman, and seems to consider her lifestyle now to be earned.
And it’s this kind of ersatz early feminism that makes the sexual politics of the marriages interesting. The first flashback is hyper-fixated on Deborah’s discomfort in her husband Brad’s (Jeffrey Lynn) social circles, her inadequacy about herself in relation to how perfect he seemingly is. And Addie Ross features most extensively. We never see her, though the early portions of the film feature her occasional omniscient voiceover provided by Celeste Holm -a device which doesn’t entirely fit outside the letter itself, but it does convey an attitude. Apparently she had been considered by Brad’s friends the perfect woman for him, and after even the amendment to Deborah’s aforementioned wardrobe situation fails as they dance, it just accentuates her insecurity and embarrassment in comparison to this ideal woman -whom she later finds talking with Brad on a moonlit balcony. And Brad, for all his niceties, talks about Addie with inappropriate frequency, which in the context of the letter becomes an especial red flag. Deborah truly feels she has the most to worry about, and Mankiewicz supports that impression.
Deborah and Brad are buttoned up in their relationship drama, not letting on that anything is wrong. The drama between Rita and George however is striking. Her flashback concerns a small dinner party, at which Lora Mae and Porter are also in attendance (the absence of Deborah and Brad in the other flashbacks leaves them underdeveloped and I’m not sure why Mankiewicz omitted them so often). George is the most fleshed out of the husbands: a teacher who laments his poor pay grade but cares too much about the virtues of education to give it up. So his insecurity about his wife being the breadwinner is framed by the movie as a result of his personal choice -his frustration then mere grumbling. But there’s also the fact that he doesn’t much care for the kind of work that Rita produces on an artistic level -melodramatic soap operas mainly- not to mention the medium of radio as a whole. And he comes across as an ass in this, but not an unsympathetic one. Mankiewicz rightly characterizes his grievances as petty and contrasts them with moments of genuine charm between the couple, both of whom have highly opinionated personalities. But George is way more invested in Rita than either of his counterparts, desiring her to be more ambitious, to stand up to her idiot boss and the kind of assignments he gives her -which an audience can fairly get behind. He also barely mentions Addie, apart from the record she gifts him for his birthday (which Rita forgot) that plays later in the evening. The cracks in Rita’s marriage having nothing to do with her, and are ultimately the ones most earnestly resolved.
On the flip side though is Lora Mae and Porter, the deadest of the marriages it seems. He is much older than her, doesn’t seem to genuinely feel for her, and is concerned she’s merely a gold digger -a supposition shared by some of his acquaintances that bothers Lora Mae. Her story actually depicts their courtship, to the dismay of her family who seem to view this pursuit as shallow ambition -and it does kind of look that way. One of the movies’ lesser elements is that it never quite conveys the sincerity that supposedly is there in Lora Mae’s feelings towards Porter. They don’t match very well and the chemistry isn’t great -in part due to Porter’s relentless brusqueness. His interest in Addie is also troublesome -he keeps a framed picture of her on his piano, and his hesitant to replace it with one of Lora Mae should they marry. He’s not too fond of the idea of marriage either, due to those gold digger concerns, eventually proposing half-heartedly on New Years’. It’s not a marriage built to last, and through each instalment, the glimpses we get of it aren’t very promising. But it’s clear that Mankiewicz intends the audience to understand Porter in a similar way to George, though it doesn’t come across, because it fails to engender a sense that Lora Mae does actually love him or that he has relatable insecurity issues owing to his age and wealth. If that picture had been painted better, Porter would translate as more than just a foul-tempered miser, and we might see what Lora Mae does in him.
There is the hint of that a little too late. Lora Mae goes home after the picnic and doesn’t find Porter, believing he ran off with Addie, only for him to show up overhearing her and accusing her of looking for an opportunity to divorce him for his wealth. It’s too bitter though to be read empathetically, especially where he calls out her lack of affection even as he has offered little in return. What’s ironic is that he almost did run off with someone certainly just attracted to him for his money -as its’ later revealed he was the one who Addie was referring to in the letter. It’s a minor twist, Deborah having been the only one to come home to no husband, convinced it was indeed Brad who skipped town; and she discloses this to her friends (Rita and George having reconciled and her having ditched the crappy boss). But it was Porter, having backed out at the last minute, giving Deborah a jubilant resolution and greater security in her marriage. This ending and pseudo-redemption for Porter hinges on the authenticity of that last relationship, and for that, I don’t think it entirely works. It also comes across as a compromise for the Production Code, which had stringent measures on the portrayal of infidelity. It’s kind of a cheat to not have any of the husbands actually commit the sin, walking back some of the movies’ veneer of complexity around marriage. And it leaves Deborah and Brad’s issues still unaddressed.
But I think A Letter to Three Wives is still pretty good. It does raise some legitimate issues in marriage that weren’t typically in the spotlight during that time and suggested a keen normalization of womens’ agency and external lives going into the 1950s, as well as the support for that needed by their men. The actresses are great, as are their characters, and I truly wish they’d gotten more screen-time together. It’s a movie that has been dwarfed in some regards by All About Eve the following year, but it’s worth checking out for its’ unique perspective on domestic life, relationships, and womens’ anxieties when the popular cinema wasn’t much interested in that.
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