3 Women (1977)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Robert Altman

Writer:

Robert Altman (written by)

Release Date:

25 May 1977 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

1 woman became 2/2 women became 3/3 women became 1

Plot:

Shy, reclusive girl Pinky starts work at a sanitarium and becomes emotionally attached to her fellow worker...

Plot Keywords:

Birth | Stillborn Child | Cafeteria | Bar | Memory Loss

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 3 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Shelley Duvall	...	Mildred "Millie" Lammoreaux
Sissy Spacek	...	Pinky Rose
Janice Rule	...	Willie Hart
Robert Fortier	...	Edgar Hart
Ruth Nelson	...	Mrs. Rose
John Cromwell	...	Mr. Rose
Sierra Pecheur	...	Ms. Bunweil
Craig Richard Nelson	...	Dr. Maas
Maysie Hoy	...	Doris
Belita Moreno	...	Alcira
Leslie Ann Hudson	...	Polly
Patricia Ann Hudson	...	Peggy
Beverly Ross	...	Deidre
John Davey	...	Dr. Norton

Also Known As:

Robert Altman's 3 Women (USA) (complete title)
Three Women (USA) (alternative spelling)

Runtime:

USA:124 min (FMC Library Print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:AA (original rating) (1977) | UK:PG (re-rating) (2006) | Iceland:12 | Canada:PG (Ontario) | West Germany:12 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Singapore:PG | Sweden:15 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Desert Hot Springs, California, USA

Company:

Lions Gate Films

Trivia:

Robert Altman had a believer in the head of production at 20th Century Fox, 'Alan Ladd Jr'. He felt that he could indulge Altman's offbeat projects, while the studio's more commercial films like Star Wars (1977) would make up for any financial loss. Peter Biskind, author of "Easy Riders," reports in his book that Altman and Tommy Thompson were driving to the airport, when Altman said, "Let's stop at 20th. I had a dream last night, I want to sell it to Laddie. Keep the engine running, it'll only take a minute." Altman darted into Ladd's office, made a deal for "3 Women," and was back in the car in time to make his flight.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Millie and Pinkie prepare for dinner party, the time line is way out of whack. Scene begins in early morning, as Millie wakes Pinkie and tells her she is going grocery shopping for the dinner. Millie returns from store (presumably within an hour or so), Pinkie carries out garbage after spilling shrimp cocktail on herself and, en route to trash cans, meets dinner guests who say they can't come because they're on way to a beer joint instead - a scene that would have occurred no later than mid-morning and means that seven or more hours are unaccounted for.

Quotes:

Millie Lammoreaux: [to Pinky] I fill in my diary every night, whether anything happened that day or not. Got a lot to write about today. You.
Millie Lammoreaux: [writing in Diary] I have a new roommate. Of all people, it's Pinky, the new girl at work. She's a strange person, but it's better than waitin' around for some fat nurse to answer the notice. On the way home I took her to Dodge City for a beer. All the guys were ridin' dirt bikes out back...

Movie Connections:

References The Stepford Wives (1975)

3 Women

I saw "3 Women" in 1977. I went back to the cinema and saw it two more times, before I wrote a review. Though I have seen it many other times since then, today I do not recall every detail. Nevertheless I remember its story dealt with three women whose solidarity allows them to survive in a world dominated by insensitive men. Two of these women move the story, the third one does not have a direct influence on the events, but she is a key figure. There is no puzzle here, no enigma to decipher. It may be based on Robert Altman's dream, it may have a dream sequence, but it is quite linear and direct, with little relation to dreams' structure (or lack of it). I say this today but after finding my review in my files, I think it's ironic and makes me laugh at myself. By 1977 I had not read Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation" yet and I was trying to decipher what the butter meant in "Last Tango in Paris". But I must admit that I find interesting some of the research I did and a few interpretations I made. I found then various leitmotivs in the movie: first, the grotesquely erotic murals painted and shot at by Willie (Janice Rule), that illustrate the oppressive situation of woman in phallocratic societies; water, which --according to Dane Rudhyar-- stands for collective consciousness and astral world, a symbol that for me tacitly connected the three women (and that has played an important role in other Altman films: "McCabe & Mrs. Miller", "Streamers", "Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean", "The Gingerbread Man", "Dr. T & the Women", frozen in "Quintet", and even in "HealtH", "Popeye" and "O.C. and Stiggs"); the image of twins Peggy and Polly, duplicated in Alcira and Doris, mirroring the Millie-Pinky duplicity; and the clinic, as a metaphor of social and moral decay while its members attempt at efficiency. It may sound crazy but I even made a connection between the pool of the boarding house (owned by Willie) and a woman's womb (Willie's), where the temporary symbiosis of Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek) into Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall) takes place. Today I consider all these more hints than cryptic data, and sometimes they are even too obvious –as the line when Millie says something like "Sometimes Peggy can be Polly, and Polly can be Peggy", gun-crazy Edgar as a symbol of sexual inadequacy and male authoritarianism, and the delivery of the dead child as a metaphor of the sterility of this kind of relationship between men and women. As I remember it today, it is a sad story of female bonding as a means of survival in a consumerist society, narrated in a beautiful cinematic style, with remarkable performances by all. (Funny, although Duvall had won the Best Actress Palm d'Or in Cannes, in my review the one who impressed me the most was Rule, because she was able to transmit so much with less than a dozen of lines). By far, it's my favorite Robert Altman movie and one of his masterpieces.