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Female1933 US Dir Michael Curtiz Cast Ruth Chatterton, George Brent IMDb |
Female tests the limits of the theory that the pre-Code era was a positive time for women. Viewed in context, I suppose it provides one of the most forward-thinking portrayals of a woman in power of any contemporary medium: Ruth Chatterton’s Alison Drake is the president of a major automotive corporation — without, as far as I know, any real-life parallel in 1933 — equally ruthless in the boardroom and the bedroom. By day, she runs an enormous factory with intelligence, drive, and zero tolerance for moony men and silly women. By night, she seduces male employees with a mere glass of vodka and a toss of a pillow. She commands total respect and helpless lust. And she does all this with seemingly limitless energy, a constantly calculating mind, and unshakable self-assurance. Quite consciously, Alison alters her personality and approach to suit the situation, always in her own self-interest, which is why a few changes of heart over the course of the film may not bother a modern viewer. One can understand the pick-up routine she puts on the first time she meets George Brent’s engineer Jim Thorne, to prove to herself she is desirable for herself, apart from the money, power and glamour; one even bears her dumbed-down, eyelash-batting seduction of Thorne, because ultimately what she has in mind is much more for her own benefit than his.
All this, along with the film’s lively pace and fairly non-stop hilarity, makes Female not only one of the best female-empowerment films, but one of the best pre-Code films full stop… until its ending. It’s hard to reconcile Alison’s fate with the rest of the film, which shows her fully in control and self-possessed. And I don’t know whether the denouement is a simple cop-out, a way of making the film palatable to a contemporary audience, or an actually misogynist exercise in putting an independent woman in her place. Whatever the case, it’s virtually unacceptable to a modern viewer of any stripe, ruining all the fun that had come before. Oh, it’s easy to imagine that the battle of the sexes continues after Alison and Jim ride off into the sunset to claim his stake on the company, but there is no mistaking that the post-breakdown Alison is a changed woman, or shall I say a “real” woman: she isn’t luring Brent back on her terms now, or indeed on any terms but those of the prospective ideal wife. She has found her real vocation. Shown the virtues of womanhood and the sacred duty of motherhood, Allison chucks it all: her business, her way of life, her self. Alison does need to learn a lesson about compassion and leading a full life, and Jim’s proposed compromise (that they marry and share the company) would have been fine, but the film goes far past humbly knocking her down a peg to maliciously destroy the woman it had so admirably built up. This is, after all, decades before the “you can have it all” message of second-wave feminism.
Oh, but if I kid myself that the film ends just a little differently — that in a flash of understanding for self and other, Allison saves her love affair, her company, and her self-esteem all in an afternoon’s work — Female becomes, with no further reservations, one of my favorite films of the decade. In a brisk 60 minutes Female covers a lot of ground: it’s very funny, and very pre-Code naughty. Chatterton is simply one of the greats in one of her greatest roles, obviously relishing in the chance to play, by Jim Thorne’s count, four women, all with a unique vitality and intelligence. To each facet of Allison’s remarkably complex (forgetting the end, still) character she brings warmth and humanity, a continuity of selfhood as well as an ability to fragment into credible constituent selves. This is a psychologically rich and really lifelike portrayal, and in any year but that of Garbo’s magnificent Queen Christina Chatterton would easily walk away with my acting honors.
Yes, Ruth Chatterton: dignified, confident, devilishly funny and sexy as hell… can I sing her praises any more without betraying myself for the budding fangirl I am? 
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Updates, hurrah! Through most of Female I had the feeling that the message was betraying its subject. Even little things, the way Chatterton stresses, the way she commands, is not in the spirit of her independence. The ending confirmed all of my suspicions and I left the movie completely forgetting it.
How many Chatterton films have you seen since this one?
Comment by Mango — 27 July 2008 @ 27 July 2008“message was betraying its subject” — my friend, who half-watched it with me, seemed to feel the same way. I found most of this wonderfully subversive and reinforcing her independence in unusual ways until the ending. In light of the ending, I don’t really give it credit for intentionally doing anything remotely feminist, of course. But I like my reading a lot.
Completely forgetting it, though? I really thought it was hilarious. I’m going to watch it for the fourth time tonight before, finally, returning it to Netflix. Since my last viewing (and temporarily, I’m sure) I got on board the George Brent train, and I must rewatch in this spirit. I can make something sexy out of almost nothing at all.
I’ve seen another six or seven Chatterton films since, with about as many left to go. But oh my god, I’ve got to get my hands on The Rat (1937) somehow — Ruth and Anton Walbrook!! Have you ever seen a trace of it?
Comment by Lauren — 27 July 2008 @ 27 July 2008The depth of your obsession is humbling.
The Rat? Not a trace, nor do I think a trace will ever appear before me unless you provide it.
Comment by Mango — 27 July 2008 @ 27 July 2008*goes off to read new posts*
This right here is perhaps the one thing in my life I do committedly, thoroughly, and enthusiastically. My life is very small.
Comment by Lauren — 27 July 2008 @ 27 July 2008