Woman Against Woman

I love the script of Woman Against Woman! It's fresh, smart, and above all, realistic. Villains aren't villains, everyone has her point of view, and no one does anything that she wouldn't do in real life. This is not a cutesy, cavity-inducing flick that gives a happy ending to all. It's a realistic look at marriage in the 1930s when divorce wasn't unheard of, but wasn't common either.

Herbert Marshall is unhappily married to Mary Astor. She wears the pants and keeps him on a very tight leash. When Herbie falls in love with Virginia Bruce, Mary declares a hissing, spitting catfight to hold onto her man. I don't want to tell you any more of the plot, because it's a very fun film to watch as it naturally unfolds, but I will say that it very nearly won a Rag Award for Edward Chodorov's screenplay. All three leads hold their own and bounce off each other with the practiced professionality of a stage performance, so if you like good dialogue and good acting, check out this catfight-I mean film.

"Woman Against Woman" is an excellent film for folks who are dealing with divorce or marrying a divorced person. It shows the manipulation and games that some of these folks have to deal with. And, it shows that clear boundaries must be established or these subsequent marriages will be doomed.

When the film begins, Cynthia (Mary Astor) is being a horrible wife. She is domineering, controlling and seems to care nothing for her husband, Stephen (Herbert Marshall). What she doesn't realize is that she's pushed him to the breaking point and Stephen announces he's divorcing her. Considering Cynthia, this is probably for the best.

Some time passes and Stephen meets Maris (Virginia Bruce). She's a lovely lady but doesn't realize she's in for hell. This is because Stephen is an idiot and takes her back to live in his home town...the same town where Cynthia lives and is the toast of society. Not surprisingly, Cynthia makes Maris' arrival miserable and it's made worse because Cynthia is brilliant and manages to turn everyone against Maris through her manipulations. Even Stephen's mother seems to side with Cynthia! What's next?!

This is a very good film with some nice acting. My reason for giving it a 7, however, is that the end is just too simple and seemed anti-climatic. This film is a good example of one that could have used 15 more minutes--to show a more gradual change in Cynthia. Good but the ending just seemed unrealistic and quick.

Woman Against Woman from MGM's B picture unit seems almost a dress rehearsal for MGM's classic The Women as both Mary Astor and Virginia Bruce scratch and claw over Herbert Marshall.

Astor and Marshall have been married and have a daughter Juanita Quigley, but Marshall's walking out. Soon enough he meets Virginia Bruce and they get married.

But Marshall wants to have his cake and eat it too. They move into the same suburban town where he lived before with Astor. The town gossips nearly do in Bruce. In the end though a modus operandi is achieved for the sake of the little girl.

Woman Against Woman is a great example of The Code at work. Divorce is a fact of life even the Catholic Breen office couldn't ignore. We could never have Marshall carrying on with Bruce while he was still married. Everyone had to be showed in the best possible light. The three in the triangle act so civilized and polite I thought it was going to end in a menage a trois.

Woman Against Woman is just a dress rehearsal. Wait till the following year when Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and company really drag the claws out.

This is a very efficiently directed movie: so efficient, indeed, that there is not enough character friction or time for witty lines of dialogue to make things interesting. Mary Astor is the manipulative ex-wife, using Herbert Marshall's love of their daughter to control his life. Virginia Bruce is the supportive new wife who knows precisely what is going on and bides her time, making happy noises until Mary Astor can be unmasked. And Herbert Marshall is the brilliant lawyer who doesn't have a clue. The rest of the cast acts like it's a road show troupe of THE WOMEN. Indeed, several of the cast would be prominently featured in that movie when MGM made it the following year.

This is a talented lead trio. Too bad they're not used to advantage here. Mary Astor is now best known for her role as Bridget O'Shaugnessy in John Huston's MALTESE FALCON, but she was a great screen actress in a variety of roles. Virginia Bruce was a capable actress who just never seems to have made a great movie before her career began to slip. Herbert Marshall was a fine screen actor who survived into the 1960s. Adept at comedy (TROUBLE IN PARADISE, BREAKFAST FOR TWO), he was just moving into the supporting-the-female-star phase of his career. Here he seems to be splitting the support, caught between two good dramatic leads. Go look at TROUBLE IN PARADISE to see it done right. Seen it? See it again.

Standard drama of the kind that the studios churned out to fill the bottom half of a double bill back in Hollywood's Golden Age.

Herbert Marshall is torn between the covert scheming of first wife Mary Astor who has no compunction using their child as a weapon to try and get him back and his much more compatible second wife Virginia Bruce.

Since the situations are pat with many of these programmers it falls to the players to make something out of what they are handed.

Mary Astor comes out the victor in that department. Playing another in a long line of vengeful women she makes the small, selfish Cynthia far more interesting than the minor film deserves. A truly versatile actress she could play a poison pill of a creature in one film and turn right around in the next and play a homey, warm character such as Marmee in Little Woman with equal skill.

The usually highly enjoyable Herbert Marshall doesn't fare as well coming across as stiff and disengaged. He always had a reserve which was frequently put to good use but not here, he seems uncomfortable.

Virginia Bruce isn't given much of a role to play but she does get a few zingers in towards the end which she handles well.

Also adding nice little bits are Janet Beecher as Marshall's mother and Marjorie Rambeau as an old rum-pot friend of the couple, she in particular adds a bit of spice to the film whenever she shows up.

Directed economically but with no distinction by Sinclair, Mary still makes it short running time worth the while.