The Women (1939)

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Be careful what you say in private. It could become a movie. Some gossip overheard by Clare Boothe Luce in a nightclub powder room inspired her Broadway hit that`s wittily adapted for the screen in The Women.

George Cukor directs an all female cast in this catty tale of battling and bonding that paints its claws "Jungle Red" and shreds the excesses of pampered Park Avenue princesses. Joan Crawford, Rosalind Rusell, Joan Fontaine, Mary Boland and Paulette Goddard are among the array of husband snatchers and lovelorn ladies. Norma Shearer is jilted Mary Haines, who ultimately learns to claw without ruining her manicure. All the glamming and slamming comes with a shimmery bauble: a fashion show sequence in eye-popping Technicolor.