The Women (1939) Queer Film A-

DIRECTOR: George Cukor

The Women is the first American studio film with an entirely female cast, and its commitment to that conceit runs deep: every piece of artwork on screen was created by women, and the screenplay—by Anita Loos andJane Murfin—was adapted fromClaire Boothe Luce’s 1936 Broadway hit. Even the animals are female! Behind the camera, however, 1939 Hollywood reasserts itself: the crew is almost entirely male, though the production is steered by the industry’s most accomplished gay director, George Cukor, working just a month after his dismissal from Gone with the Wind for, as some contemporaries whispered, being “too gay” for David O. Selznick’s comfort.

The film’s only overtly lesbian figure—an “old maid” who lives in slacks and radiates a dry, knowing independence—is played by Florence Nash, not Katharine Hepburn, though the costume might suggest otherwise. Nash’s presence adds a sly, subversive note to a film otherwise devoted to the romantic and social entanglements of Park Avenue women.

Cinematography:

Joseph Ruttenberg

Oliver T. Marsh

MGM

STREAMING: Amazon Prime and Apple TV+

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