OVP: When Ladies Meet (1941)

Film: When Ladies Meet (1941)

Stars: Joan Crawford, Robert Taylor, Greer Garson, Herbert Marshall, Spring Byington, Rafael Storm

Director: Robert Z. Leonard

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Art Direction)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

One of the things that I miss about Classical Hollywood (a nostalgia that requires time travel, since while I'm getting older, I am not quite old enough to have lived through Classical Hollywood cinema when it was being released), is the way that it makes a point of having major film actresses of the era play opposite each other.  While this is getting (somewhat) better, it's rare that modern films put two major female stars as the leads of a movie.  Oftentimes women are paired (usually romantically) with male stars of the era, and so it's a treat when we have a movie like When Ladies Meet (see, it's right there in the title) that puts together two of the biggest stars of the era, Joan Crawford & Greer Garson (Robert Taylor is just along for the ride) on the screen at the same time. And adding to this excitement is the fact that the two of them (despite big stylistic differences in their onscreen approach) are dynamite when teamed up.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Mary Howard (Crawford), a novelist (how often did Crawford play a writer-this seems like a theme?) who writes frequently about marriage & love, but hasn't quite experienced it until the opening of the film, when it's revealed she's in love with her married publisher Rogers (Marshall).  Mary's pal Jimmy (Taylor) has been wild about her for years, but knows that she could slip away here, so he decides to play a trick on her by having her meet (through circumstance) Rogers' wife Claire (Garson), in a decadent country home owned by their mutual friend Bridgie (Byington).  Once there, Mary & Claire become friends, until it's evident that Claire knows who Mary is, and that while she's become aware of Rogers affairs, she cannot stand the site of Mary with him, understanding that their marriage is effectively over (though the film ends with Rogers, perhaps understanding the error of his ways, pursuing Claire after Mary also dumps him, knowing that she'd always worry about his cheating ways). The film ends with Jimmy & Mary finally realizing they are perfect for each other, as Bridgie beamingly cheers them on.

I quite liked this movie, even though I knew nothing about it.  Obviously at this point all three stars were at different points in their careers.  Crawford just a few years previously had been proclaimed "box office poison" (we were several years away from her creative comeback in Mildred Pierce), while Garson was on the upswing & Taylor was a major star.  Still, Crawford got top billing and (on-paper) the best part as the "other woman" who must choose between her own happiness & destroying Garson's scorned wife.  However, it's Garson who is the best of the three, totally charming & witty in the third lead (or is it a top supporting...a category fraud discussion for another day), who also has to be terribly tragic when she realizes that Crawford's Mary is not like the other girls, and isn't a flight-of-fancy.  Spring Byington is also delicious as a fool (or is she?) who is clearly having an affair with a younger man & is very into the wicked escapades happening around her (Byington's silly nods give you a lot more innuendo than a post-Code film like this should be able to do).

The film was nominated for one Academy Award, and it's one of the weirder nominations you'll ever have.  While in recent years designers like Stuart Craig or Dan Henneh have been nominated for different installments of movie series, they are still different parts of the same series-an extended sequel & stories.  Here, however, Cedric Gibbons had actually done the art direction on the original When Ladies Meet from 1933 with Ann Harding & Myrna Loy, and he was also nominated for that, making this one of the few (probably only?) times someone has been nominated for the same craft for the same story.  The art direction initially seems like an odd citation (it's just a series of drawing rooms), until we get to Byington's Bridgie's house.  In the film it's intended to be a renovated barn, and honestly it's beautiful-it's the kind of thing that would arguably be more fashionable now than it is then (Joanna Gaines would love this place if you want an idea of what it's like), and I couldn't get enough of the way it felt like an actual home & not just a continuous set.  I haven't seen the 1933 film (yet), so I don't know how similar the two are (and if Gibbons essentially cheated giving us the same idea twice), but I thought it was great-very cool, modern design that adds an almost maze-like ambience to the film's many love triangles.