Female

Year: 1933

Grade: B+

Country: USA

Director: Curtiz

Review

gets into some nitty gritty stuff on gender relations and roles. it’s about a wealthy and powerful woman (ruth chatterton) who runs a car company. she’s a player who draws men up to her room, gives them vodka and then does the old fuck and chuck routine. keep in mind this is a film that was released in 1933. eventually, though, she falls for some guy and when he finds out she can be pretty cut throat, he doesn’t like it. so she plays like she’s a soft and ignorant woman and he likes her more. it’s pretty interesting to see all this stuff explored in such an early film. it’s kinda like what they did in adam’s rib, but with a pre-code feel to it. in the end there is an almost obligatory turn wherein chatterton decides she’ll stop running the company and have 9 kids with the guy instead. with everything else that the film does, i assume this ending was tacked on to satisfy some producer or something. it was released after the hays code began, but before it was really enforced.

interestingly the film had three directors (all of whom were great, only one of them got credit): william dieterle, william wellman, michael curtiz (credited). don’t think i’ve ever seen a chatterton film before, but she was really good here.