Jungle Red!

Some movies eek their way through the so-called Bechdel test. And then there’s The Women, MGM’s 1939 comedy of manners featuring a catty sea of dudettes and nary a single dude. Directed by George Cukor and based on the play by Clare Boothe Luce, the movie stars a bounty of Hollywood’s grandest female names of its time, among them Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and Paulette Goddard. It’s a trip.

Fans of the film and old Hollywood in general will feast on Jungle Red! The Making of MGM’s The Women, a definitive new account by the wonderful Illeana Douglas. It’s a juicy book, with captivating appearances by seemingly every player of the era. F. Scott Fitzgerald is there, in his Hollywood ruin; so is Time honcho Henry Luce, husband to the playwright herself. We learn of the movie’s fascinating screenwriter, Jane Murfin, and the Chaplin heroine Goddard, an oddly contemporary figure who pops off the page every time she turns up. There’s even a cameo from—are you sitting down?—Margaret Dumont’s tattoo.

Douglas handles her meaty material with flair. Of course, she’s a player herself—a veteran actor with a face familiar from movies (Cape Fear, Goodfellas, Ghost World) and TV (The Larry Sanders Show, Six Feet Under). She is the rare actor to have jumped into an author’s role so smoothly—Jungle Red! is Douglas’s third book, following the memoir I Blame Dennis Hopper and the lushly illustrated doorstopper Connecticut in the Movies. While her comfort with the film material comes naturally, her research acumen is commendable.

In New York? Well, who the hell isn’t?! On Sunday, October 4, Film Forum screens The Women, followed by a conversation between Douglas and Bruce Goldstein, the theater’s longtime Repertory Artistic Director. Get thee to the screening! And do yourself a favor and grab a copy of Jungle Red! The Making of MGM’s The Women—stat!