That Way with Women (1947)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Frederick De Cordova

Writers:

Earl Derr Biggers (story)
Francis Swann (additional dialogue)

Release Date:

29 March 1947 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman

Cast

Dane Clark	...	Greg Wilson
Martha Vickers	...	Marcia Alden
Sydney Greenstreet	...	James P. Alden
Alan Hale	...	Herman Brinker
Craig Stevens	...	Carter Andrews
Barbara Brown	...	Minerva Alden
Don McGuire	...	Slade
John Ridgely	...	Sam
Richard Erdman	...	Eddie (as Dick Erdman)
Herbert Anderson	...	Melvyn Pfeiffer
Howard Freeman	...	Dr. Harvey
Ian Wolfe	...	L.B. Crandall
Olaf Hytten	...	Davis
Joe Devlin	...	Desk Sergeant
Charles Arnt	...	Harry Miller

Runtime:

84 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:S

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Movie Connections:

Version of The Millionaire (1931)

Womens Lib *Started* in the *40s* -- A Nice Little B-movie

This flick is a nice little post-war B-movie, with a John Garfield clone and Sidney Greenstreet.

Greg Wilson is a veteran, back and looking for something to do with his life. He meets up with J.P.Alden (Greenstreet), who offers to help him with his dream of owning a service station. In return, Alden only asks that he be allowed to help around the station.

Complications ensue, involving Alden's daughter, as Alden's true identity and situation become clear. Not "funny" complications, but a pleasant, "slice-of-life" sort.

I consider it particularly interesting because of the contrast of women's roles in this film and that of "Mother Is a Freshman" only two years later.

In this film, the female lead is spunky, self-assured, and fully capable... think Joan Crawford without the b**** attitude. Her clothing is loose and flowing, hair down and easy to care for, and her shoes are practical -- you could see her breaking into a run if the situation called for it.

In MIaF, however, we have a woman, played by Loretta Young, who is her polar opposite, and a precursor to 50s housewife "role model" -- helpless without a man, in tight skirts and high heels and with a Kim Novak type hairstyle that you would have to spend 3 days a week at the hairdressers to keep remotely decent looking.

I saw them back to back on a "classics" movie channel many years back, and the contrast made me particularly aware that Women's Lib did not *begin* in the 1960s, in fact it was simply *backpedalling* in the 1950s from where it had been in the 1940s.

The two together are an interesting view of the history of society which does not totally jibe with modern views of the Feminist movement, much as "Cimarron" does not gibe with modern views of Native American and Feminist relationships to society.