'Jungle Red': Illeana Douglas' colorful story of 'The Women'

Film historians are almost universal in their acknowledgment of 1939 as the greatest year in the history of Hollywood. The number of enduring classics produced in that one year — "Gone With the Wind," "The Wizard of Oz," "Mr Smith Goes to Washington," "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," for starters — has never been duplicated.

Another gem to come out of that banner year was "The Women," a biting comedy (literally during the movie's famous catfight scene) based on playwright Clare Boothe Luce's Broadway smash. The big gimmick was that it boasted an all-female cast headlined by MGM's dueling divas Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford. Now actress Illeana Douglas goes behind the scenes in her wonderful new book "Jungle Red," which looks at all the drama that took place on the making of that delightful clawfest. (The book's title refers to a shade of nail polish that plays a key role in the movie.)

Douglas does a masterful job of weaving together all of the history behind "The Women," starting with its journey from Broadway — where it ran for a year and a half — to Hollywood. The play by Clare Boothe Luce, who attended the Cathedral School of St. Mary in Garden City, was a roman a clef based on acquaintances she knew and her own experiences that got some of its biggest laughs from lines that could never get past Hollywood's strict Production Code of the time. The challenge for screenwriters Anita Loos and Jane Murfin was to come up with equally clever lines for the movie, one they had not trouble meeting. ("There’s a name for you ladies, but it isn’t used in high society outside of a kennel," remarks Crawford in the movie.) While some of the movie's viewpoints on marriage haven't aged well, the lines are still as sharp as ever.

The juiciest part of the book deals with the backstage drama involving the film's three headliners — Shearer, Crawford and Rosalind Russell. Douglas delves into the rivalry among the performers (Crawford especially resented Shearer, who got most of the plum roles at MGM thanks in no small part to being married to the studio's head of production Irving Thalberg), but more important, looks at why "The Women" was so crucial to the careers of each. After Thalberg's death in 1936, Shearer was in danger of being dethroned as the Queen of MGM. Crawford, who had been labeled box-office poison was in desperate need of a hit. And Russell, floundering in unsubstantial supporting roles since her screen debut in 1934 was anxious for a breakout comedic role. As Douglas notes, "Russell knew 'The Women' was her chance at stardom. Her quest was only helped by Shearer and Crawford being so focused on upstaging each other that they didn't notice."

Douglas also gives due to all of the other women in the cast, including Joan Fontaine, a year away from stardom in Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca," and Great Neck-raised Paulette Goddard, then married to Charlie Chaplin.

While it wasn't easy being a woman in Hollywood at the time, Douglas notes how difficult it was also being a gay man working in the film capital back then. Several of the men involved in the making of "The Women" — costume designer Adrian, hairstylist Sydney Guilaroff and art director Cedric Gibbons — were all gay, along with the director George Cukor, who took on the job after being let go from "Gone With the Wind." (Rumors were that star Clark Gable wanted him fired in favor of the star's favorite director, the macho Victor Fleming.) Cukor soon became known as "the lion tamer" for the way he handled all of the temperamental females on the set of "The Women."

Douglas — herself Hollywood royalty as the granddaughter of actor Melvyn Douglas, who famously made Garbo laugh in another gem from 1939, "Ninotchka" — proves herself a skillful writer and superb Hollywood historian with "Jungle Red." One of her true gifts is her ability to focus on the film's stars by treating them with humanity rather than as ego-driven movie stars. She does the women of "The Women" proud.