Tweet Hollywood feminist films of the 40s onward

I forget, why were we assuming that to be a feminist film a woman had to have directed it?

Because all us men are pigs. Why aren't you in the kitchen?

Bob

Maybe the topic should be posed as 'Hollywood Pre-Feminist Films That Suggest A Coming Movement For Their Daughters In The Years To Come Even If Our Stars Of The 40's End Up As Kitchen Lackeys In The Final Reel'?

You have the title for an upcoming TCM documentary!

Jean Arthur and Marlene Dietrich in 1948's A FOREIGN AFFAIR. I love this picture and I thought the women were 'take charge' types in their own way for lack of a better term. Jean kicking butt, taking names in postwar Germany.

I have never seen anyone boss Cary Grant around in a movie with more authority than Ann Sheridan in I Was A Male War Bride (1949). She cajoled, ordered, and, by letting him do it his way, had much fun at his expense. While you may or may not call her character feminist, according to your definition of the term, she is no doubt independent, as an officer and a woman. She had the most wonderful laugh.

Hasen't anyone noticed that in pre-code films the women usually give up their career at the end? I think MIck LaSalle was really misleading on that topic.

Jeanine Basinger discusses this issue more fully in her book on women's films, which does include discussion of some precodes. Yes, those annoying endings confirm the traditionalist view in that the female characters usually fold and learn to love mopping floors. But they are subversive in that before the fold, the male characters are pushed to the sidelines and the female leads indulge in a lot of transgressive behavior, usually with really swell fashion thrown in.

The one I was thinking of in this regard is Female with Ruth Chatterton. They have the cliched ending of returning to domesticity but before then, it's about as feminist as 30s Hollywood ever got.

Also another resolution to the feminist approach in pre Code days was death. Think of Christopher Strong with Katharine Hepburn. She plays a strong character but the character both achieves her peak achievement and her death with one action, in response to her relationship with a man. Actually, Hepburn in the 30s is an interesting figure on this topic. Lots of nontraditional roles for her.

Jeanine Basinger discusses this issue more fully in her book on women's films, which does include discussion of some precodes. Yes, those annoying endings confirm the traditionalist view in that the female characters usually fold and learn to love mopping floors. But they are subversive in that before the fold, the male characters are pushed to the sidelines and the female leads indulge in a lot of transgressive behavior, usually with really swell fashion thrown in.

The one I was thinking of in this regard is Female with Ruth Chatterton. They have the cliched ending of returning to domesticity but before then, it's about as feminist as 30s Hollywood ever got.

Also another resolution to the feminist approach in pre Code days was death. Think of Christopher Strong with Katharine Hepburn. She plays a strong character but the character both achieves her peak achievement and her death with one action, in response to her relationship with a man. Actually, Hepburn in the 30s is an interesting figure on this topic. Lots of nontraditional roles for her.

That return to domesticity thing in Female only lasted for a week after the wedding. Then Ruth said "oh wow, this way sucks" and went back to the office. For a real modern sort of gal in pre-70s film, how about Torchy Blaine?

Man Wanted has Kay Fwancis playing a similar Chatterton executive-type. So does Christmas in Connecticut in a way (Stanwyck is a Martha Stewart-esque columnist), and oh goodie, I get to watch that again soon! I don't think there is any pre-70s film that is going to make a feminist theorist's heart go pitty-pat, but there were plenty of films that communicated to women. In Women's Film, although the lead may be playing a traditional domestic woman, rarely is she seen cleaning a toilet or grocery shopping or doing laundry, and dishes are washed only as a pretext for a tête à tête with Man du Jour. If she has children they are trotted out once or twice to confirm her maternal chops, and then they are usually stuffed back into the cinematic closet. If the woman has a nontraditional career, it's always a colorful one: she's an executive, she's a scientist, she's an artist/musician/writer. If she's a waitress, she's Joan Crawford, and she will soon own a string of restaurants. Money is almost never an issue and she dresses in Adrian or Travis Banton or Orry Kelly. (She dresses in Adrian or Banton or Orry Kelly even if money is an issue.)

They're fantasies, of course, as Basinger points out, they weren't made to be taken seriously and no one did. But it's interesting that at a time when women didn't have much economic or social independence, they were going to movies to watch fantasies about it.

I mean really. Do we need the Fwancis bit?

I mean really. Do we need the Fwancis bit?

Yes.

And what about His Girl Friday? Here's a film that has the man interested in the girl not only for her as a romantic interest, but also for what she can do for a career. He wants her for her skills as a reporter. And it not only states this, it shows her at work -- comfortable among the boys, she proves exactly why Cary Grant wants her on his staff. And it shows her rejecting a domestic relationship with Ralph Bellamy in favor of going back to work for Grant at the end.

And what about His Girl Friday? Here's a film that has the man interested in the girl not only for her as a romantic interest, but also for what she can do for a career. He wants her for her skills as a reporter. And it not only states this, it shows her at work -- comfortable among the boys, she proves exactly why Cary Grant wants her on his staff. And it shows her rejecting a domestic relationship with Ralph Bellamy in favor of going back to work for Grant at the end.

Now there's an interesting question. In Hecht's play, Hildy Johnson was a man. So would that change qualify as feminist or non-feminist? Can we get a ruling from the judges?

Since we threw a few 30s films into the mix, how about the 20s? To my mind there is no pre-70s feminist film as strong as The Home Maker (1925) with Alice Joyce and Clive Brook as a miserable couple who find happiness when they trade jobs after he is disabled.

Feminist opinion runs both ways on Smouldering Fires (1925), but i find it ultimately pro--Pauline Frederick as the corporate exec in love with a younger employee at least takes charge of the situation and emerges with her dignity intact. A lesser known Pauline Frederick film is the delightful Her Honor the Governor (1926) though i admit i don't know the contents of the intertitles because they were Swedish. I think she even got to keep her man in this, even if it was just Tom Santschi. And don't forget Dancing Mothers (1926). Black Oxen (1924) also has a powerful and intelligent woman, or at least so the intertitles tell us--i didn't find it really carried out in the performances.

greta

I might point out that Howard Hawks directed both His Girl Friday (1940) and I Married A Male War Bride (1949), and both films had Cary Grant in the male lead. Could both Messers. Hawks and Grant be supporters of feminist heroines ? I would ask the judges to consider these two films, compare the similarities and differences in both, and how they relate to feminist issues. Please use blue books and No. 2 pencils.

Now there's an interesting question. In Hecht's play, Hildy Johnson was a man. So would that change qualify as a feminist non-feminist? Can we get a ruling from the judges?

And Man Wanted is Office Wife with the genders swapped.

greta

At least Kay Francis remains a doctor in MARY STEVENS, M.D. and DOCTOR MONICA, however much she suffers at the hands of cads/dogs Lyle Talbot and Warren William. The latter film is particularly striking. The women are all accomplished--Francis is a doctor, Veree Teasdale an architect, and even weepy Jean Muir is an aviatrix--while William is demoted to bum novelist living off his successful wife.

("Aviatrix" is an awesome term.)

I AM SUZANNE! has a strong feminist theme, and it's imbedded in the title. Suzanne is a dancer. Early on, her manager the "baron" (Leslie Banks) collects her pay from the theater manager, saying, disdainfully, "I am Suzanne." Later, her lover the puppeteer (Gene Raymond) seems to be more in love with the puppet he's made in her image than with the real woman. The story is, essentially, about Suzanne (Lilian Harvey) taking control of her own life.

Since we threw a few 30s films into the mix, how about the 20s? To my mind there is no pre-70s feminist film as strong as The Home Maker (1925) with Alice Joyce and Clive Brook as a miserable couple who find happiness when they trade jobs after he is disabled.

Feminist opinion runs both ways on Smouldering Fires (1925), but i find it ultimately pro--Pauline Frederick as the corporate exec in love with a younger employee at least takes charge of the situation and emerges with her dignity intact. A lesser known Pauline Frederick film is the delightful Her Honor the Governor (1926) though i admit i don't know the contents of the intertitles because they were Swedish. I think she even got to keep her man in this, even if it was just Tom Santschi. And don't forget Dancing Mothers (1926). Black Oxen (1924) also has a powerful and intelligent woman, or at least so the intertitles tell us--i didn't find it really carried out in the performances.

greta

I love DANCING MOTHERS because it isn't hedged in any way--the father and daughter played by Norman Trevor and Clara Bow are just plain selfish, and Alice Joyce isn't playing some kind of saint, she's just a decent person.

Dont forget that Kate Hepburn usually kept her career at the fadeout in her 40s films-and even in AFRICAN QUEEN you can say she had a career(Missionary).And in 1936 She'd made a film called A WOMAN REBELS. And there were strong, kind-of independent women in some 50s films, granted they were in either westerns or other period films and rarely in contemporary ones. I remember one where June Allyson played a 19th century girl who went to medical school.There was BELLES ON HER TOES with Myrna Loy. Even a Martin and Lewis movie had a woman vetrenarian (Also in a-vaguely-period set film, MONEY FROM HOME).Kay Francis still played a doctor("King of the Underworld")six years after the code-and I read that she was sick of playing doctors. Speaking of Kay Francis, Her 1936 WHITE ANGEL had a "Feminist" theme.That brings me to "Great Women" bios like MADAME CURIE and SISTER KENNY. I also recall Dale Evans felling a bad guy with a Judo flip! These were all post-code, obviously, so Mick LaSalle can go stow it.

[silentfilm]

I'll definitely agree that His Girl Friday (above) had a feminist lead in Hildy Johnston. And Dancing Mothers is another great example of an independent-minded woman. What about Theda Bara's The Unchastened Woman? For that matter, we don't have many of Bara's films left, but in a large number of them she is the character in control of the men in the story.