Illeana Douglas discusses & signs Jungle Red!: The Making of Mgm's the Women
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Jungle red! the making of MGM's the Women
"How Hollywood's greatest actresses proved women didn't need leading men to rule the box office in one of cinema's most daring films. Nineteen thirty-nine is generally regarded as the greatest year in cinema history, producing such outstanding films as Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights, Stagecoach, and Ninotchka. No less a critically acclaimed or financially successful movie release that year was The Women, a film now regarded as one of the major films of what was a stellar year in Hollywood film production. But what made The Women unique is that not a single male actor appears in it, not even as a voice off-screen. Its all-female cast included some of the finest actresses of their era-Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, and Butterfly McQueen-with costumes and sets designed by MGM's master stylists, Adrian and Cedric Gibbons. Based on the hit Broadway play by Clare Boothe Luce, the film adaptation went through several screenwriters-including a failing F. Scott Fitzgerald-before a final script was developed by Jane Murfin and Anita Loos. In Jungle Red!, Illeana Douglas explains how the film came together, the infighting among the cast both on and off camera, and how three gay men-director George Cukor, Adrian, and set designer Cedric Gibbons-combined to produce a stylish film that exposes the many faces of womanhood"-- Provided by publisher.
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The year 1939 produced such outstanding film classics as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Wuthering Heights. No less critically acclaimed that year was The Women. A largely forgotten masterpiece , The Women is a glamorous but stinging satire about women forced by society to be defined by men. Jungle Red! The Making of MGM's The Women restores this classic to its rightful place in Hollywood history, and its lasting legacy as a template for later female-driven projects like Sex and The City, and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Four MGM screenwriters, including a failing F. Scott Fitzgerald and an on-the-rise Donald Ogden Stewart, fought over their vision of The Women. Jane Murfin was completing her script when Anita Loos was brought in to work with her on a new draft for George Cukor, then recently fired from Gone with the Wind and determined to use The Women to get his career back on track. He became, as one newspaper called him, the lion tamer to the ladies. With sophisticated direction by Cukor, lavish fashions by Adrian, and gorgeous sets by Cedric Gibbons, its all-star cast was led by Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, and Joan Fontaine. Not a single male actor appeared, proving that women didn't need men to rule the box office. Gossip columns were filled with stories about fierce on-set rivalries, which proved fairly combustible, leading one columnist to refer to the set as "a female kennel," with behind the scenes antics as fierce and flamboyant as the film itself. The Los Angeles Times wrote, " The Women is a vitriolic masterpiece!" Now, it's time to fall in love with The Women all over again! In Jungle Red! The Making of MGM's The Women, and using never-before-seen photographs, memos, and script notes, Douglas writes not only how the film came together, but captures how the lives of the people who made it intersected before, during and after, and how the conflicts on-set and off resulted in the greatest film ever made about women . . . by a man! Illeana Douglas has starred in films like Cape Fear, To Die For, Grace of My Heart, and Ghost World, as well as TV shows Goliath, Entourage, and Six Feet Under. She’s done memorable interviews and introductions for Turner Classic Movies, Criterion, Kino Lorber, and Trailers From Hell. She’s the author of I Blame Dennis Hopper: And Other Stories from a Life Lived In and Out of the Movies, and Connecticut in the Movies: From Dream Houses to Dark Suburbia.
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Douglas, Illeana
Basinger, Jeanine
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