Craig's Wife

Before television, this kind of short melodrama was standard cinema fare. It's still fun to watch. The interior studio sets don't quite match the exterior studio sets and the people depicted always seem well-to-do. This false elegance is to movies of the 1930s what CGI is to movies of our era. Well, people go to the cinema in part to be dazzled.

This is a women's picture. The director was a woman, the screenplay was written by a woman and the main characters are women. And what a character Russell plays! The movie is a morality play structured around the faults of one character, Mr. Craig's wife. She obsessively wants to control everything to satisfy her need for security, or so goes the the pop psychology implied by the story.

Well-written television serials now deal with these kinds of characters. But I somehow prefer the slower pace of the 1930s version. I also like the little surprises. Watch for Billie Burke, the Good Witch of the North. You'll recognize the voice immediately.

ROSALIND RUSSELL got one of her first really strong dramatic roles in this abbreviated film version of George Kelly's novel, CRAIG'S WIFE. By reducing the running time to an hour and fifteen minutes, there's a rush to present as much exposition as possible before the final scene which finds the heroine alienating everyone in the household.

Missing is a scene where she goes to her husband's employer to beg that her husband not be sent abroad, as appears in the more complete version of this story which starred Joan Crawford years later, and called HARRIET CRAIG. Mrs. Craig's devious nature was better explored in Crawford's version than it is here.

BILLIE BURKE seems a strange choice to play a friendly neighbor whom Russell suspects of casting eyes at her husband, played by JOHN BOLES in another one of his weak man roles. Boles' transition from loving husband to suspicious man happens so suddenly that there's the feeling something has been cut--there's no real preparation for his change of character. Still, he gives one of his better performances during his showdown with the domineering wife.

The only other members of the cast who make any impression are JANE DARWELL as Russell's maid and ALMA KRUEGER as her mother-in-law. THOMAS MITCHELL has little to do and disappears from the story after a brief scene near the opening.

Summing up: Mainly interesting for Rosalind Russell's performance.

Harriet Craig (Rosalind Russell) is a thoroughly hateful character. This is one of those films that gains power from the strength of the villainous antagonist rather than from a relatively weak protagonist.

Harriet is married to the gentle henpecked Walter Craig. Walter never catches on, even though the Craigs have no friends and Walter has become something of a laughing stock in town. Harriet never cared much for Walter, but she sure liked his money which enabled her to have a beautiful home, servants, and a respectable place in the community. Harriet is, therefore, one of those respectable, upwardly mobile prostitutes who uses marriage to barter her good looks for money and position. It's not a pretty picture.

However, Harriet's strategy for maintaining her marriage is deeply flawed. She acts like a manipulative, controlling cold-hearted bitch at all times and ultimately her life implodes.

This film is quite well done and the viewer just can't escape a warm feeling of satisfaction as the malevolent Harriet gets what's coming to her--and more. Although the Harriet character lacks nuance (she's just SO witchy), the story still worked, at least for me. This emotional resonance indicates that the writers, actors, and director Dorothy Arzner did a good job in projecting a wholly believable villain.

Rosiland Russell wasn't a star for so long for nothing. The lady had talent, and her lengthy career in a variety of roles from screwball comedy to heart wrenching drama proves it.

Hard working, completely dedicated and always dependable, Russell hit the bull's eye in the role of Harriet Craig in 1936's "Craig's Wife." What a roll it was! The kind most actresses would die to play, even though the character's less than completely savory.

It's Roz's performance that holds our rapt attention throughout this George Kelly play adaptation, and it's Roz's subtlety that provides the fascination of a fastidious personality. The rest of the cast, headed by John Boles, is excellent, as is Dorothy Arzner's directing. The set design is perfect for the production, and the entire enactment becomes hypnotic.

Kelly's play has an interesting history: it was filmed eight years earlier by William deMille (with Irene Rich as Harriet) though there's scant info on this. The fourteen years later Vincent Sherman directed a remake with Joan Crawford in the part. Crawford was indomitable in the role, aided by Wendell Corey as her husband; still it's Russell's performance that--to my mind--reigns supreme.

The 1936 murder subplot was eliminated in the '50 version. Even so, "Craig's Wife" retains its integrity, and represents a milestone from one of the most notable female actors and the most prolific female director of the "Hollywood Golden Era."

Although it brought Columbia Pictures no awards or even nominations, Harry Cohn nevertheless produced a winner with Craig's Wife that gave Rosalind Russell her first starring role when she was loaned to Columbia from MGM. The property was already a winner having brought home a Pulitzer Prize for drama to its author George Kelly, uncle of Princess Grace.

The play was a big hit in the materialistic Twenties running 360 performances in 1925-26. Author Kelly was making one stinging indictment of living for material things, ironic when you consider he was from uppermost crust in his native Philadelphia.

Rosalind Russell stars as the hard-bitten Harriet Craig who grew up in a home that got lost because dad started straying and began mortgaging the house and the family security to pay for his pleasures. That was not about to happen to her, but the capacity to love and connect with other human beings was driven from her though she masks it very well. The whole course of the play is the unmasking of all her pretenses.

She marries John Boles strictly for her security, she needs his income to pay for the house and the furnishings inside which is her whole world. It's like she's putting it on exhibit as opposed to people living there. She's impossible to work for as servants Jane Darwell and Nydia Westman will attest.

Boles gives one of his best screen performances as well as the beleaguered Walter Craig who comes to the horrific realization that his wife not only doesn't love him, but is completely incapable of the emotion. Another two good performances come from Alma Kruger and Billie Burke. Kruger is a maiden aunt of Boles who lives with them and is the first to finally tell off Russell.

The second is a slight departure in casting for Billie Burke who usually played good, but flighty characters on screen. Here Burke plays a neighbor who prides herself in her garden and her roses the way that Russell does her house. But living things require love which Burke gives her plants. The point author Kelly was trying to make between the objects of attention that both Russell and Burke have is a stark one.

There are three versions of Craig's Wife, a silent screen version from Pathe Films that starred Irene Rich and Warner Baxter and a later one with Joan Crawford and Wendell Corey also for Columbia. I've not seen the other two in total, but I'm sure they have their merits.

Craig's Wife is smartly directed by Dorothy Arzner and it gives a fine cast a chance to show case some considerable talents.