Woman's World (1954)

Needing to fill the position of general manager of his company, and believing that an executive's wife is crucial to her husband's success, auto industry mogul Gifford brings three couples ... See full summary »

Director:

Jean Negulesco

Writers:

Claude Binyon, Russel Crouse,

Stars:

Clifton Webb, June Allyson, Van Heflin

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Clifton Webb	...	Ernest Gifford
June Allyson	...	Katie Baxter
Van Heflin	...	Jerry Talbot
Lauren Bacall	...	Elizabeth Burns
Fred MacMurray	...	Sid Burns
Arlene Dahl	...	Carol Talbot
Cornel Wilde	...	Bill Baxter
Elliott Reid	...	Tony Andrews
Margalo Gillmore	...	Mrs. Evelyn Andrews
Alan Reed	...	Tomaso
David Hoffman	...	Jabernowski

Storyline

Needing to fill the position of general manager of his company, and believing that an executive's wife is crucial to her husband's success, auto industry mogul Gifford brings three couples to New York to size up: Jerry and Carol: he hard-driven and self-reliant, she willing to use her beauty to further her husband's career; Sid and Elizabeth, he ulcer-ridden and torn between achieving success and restoring their troubled marriage, she positive that his job will kill him, but gamely agreeing to play the good wife for the duration; and down-to-earth Bill, whose good-natured Katie fears that his promotion would spell the end of their idyllic familiy existence.

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Plot Keywords:

manager | company | executive | promotion | automobile manufacturer | 

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Taglines:

The Worldy Story of Three Deadly Females and the Men in Their Lives!

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 September 1954 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Woman's World

Filming Locations:

20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (optical prints) 4-Track Stereo (Western Electric Recording) (magnetic prints)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The portrait at the center of Gifford's "wall" of paintings of his romantic conquests is the one of Gene Tierney used in "Laura" (1944), which was Clifton Webb's talking-picture debut and first Oscar-nominated role.

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Goofs

In the scene where Katie is looking in the Macy's windows, the street scene behind her does not change when she moves from one window to another. The same rear projection continued to play for both windows.

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Soundtracks

"Blue Moon"
(uncredited)
Music by Richard Rodgers
Played when everyone sits down after dancing

User Reviews

What a Time Capsule

Slick, superficial CinemaScope stuff from Hollywood's early-'50s panic attack: How ya gonna keep 'em down at the flicks after they've seen TV? Fox tried to with big screens, splashy colors, and half a dozen or so stars crammed into one entertaining soap-opera premise. There's no cinema-making genius going on here, but the movie is overwhelmingly entertaining, both for its look and its morality. A consumerist's paradise, it's so stuffed with cars and gowns and doodads that you're seized with an overwhelming urge to go shopping after you've seen it. (The cars, in particular, are '50s-futurists designs from Ford/Lincoln/Mercury, and they're knockouts.) And the morality is so utterly of its time: The onscreen drinking and smoking are nonstop, the gender premises (men seek power, women seek men) are unquestioned, and the subtext is clearly that money and power are fine, but holding on to your man is what really counts. And to do that, you'd better learn to be a dear little klutzy wifey like June Allyson instead of a calculating harlot like Arlene Dahl. Of the women, Allyson's wife-waif act becomes monotonous, and while Dahl is luscious to look at and seems to be in on the joke of how one-note her character is, she's not really much of an actress. So Bacall, her crisp-sophisticate act honed to a fine sharpness, comes off best by default. The men are all OK, but New York is the real star.