La moglie di Craig

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.

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.

A very interesting film! I saw it at a university's film archive; to my knowledge, it is not often screened on cable or broadcast TV.

For Rosalind Russell fans, the film is quite a change of pace from those who may know her best from the screwball comedy "His Girl Friday." She's very good in "Craig's Wife," (as is the supporting cast) and her performance gives you an appreciation for her range as an actress.

I say the film addresses a timeless American theme, which is the tension between American culture's focus on materialism (an issue even way back in the 1930's, clearly) versus a person's more human needs, such as emotional intimacy. The character of Harriet Craig clearly resists any show of vulnerability and, as the film progresses, increasingly reveals a depth of coldness that's also chilling for the audience to witness, and is mirrored in the uneasiness the supporting characters display as they interact with her.

What gives the film its lasting impression is that there are almost certainly many of us today who have met someone like the character. Furthermore, in the present day, we often see similar themes (love vs. money) played out in American films.

The theme was a common one, I think, in the 1930's, partly because the Depression and its aftermath made it hard for anyone (particularly women, for whom few career opportunities were available, let alone accepted) to ignore the economic expediency and comfort that finding a wealthy husband could afford. In that era, the hardships that may have accompanied being a romantic and marrying for love (without regard for money) were not trivial.

For a comic take on this same thematic vein, catch "Midnight" with Claudette Colbert, which is a delightful movie that I think screens fairly often on the AMC (American Movie Classics) cable channel. Less from a money-based viewpoint, but very much from an emotional standpoint, the character Mary Tyler Moore plays in 1980's "Ordinary People," a drama, has some of the same elements as Rosalind Russell's Harriet Craig here.

Another variant, which centers on the ambiguous intentions of a man toward a wealthy young woman, can be found in "The Heiress" with Olivia de Havilland, remade (with the title of the Henry James novel both films were based on) as "Washington Square" in the 1990s, with Jennifer Jason Leigh.

So, I view "Craig's Wife" as a surprisingly unflinching view of how one woman walled herself up within a prison -- both material and emotional -- of her own making. Highly recommended.

Rosalind Russell gives an excellent, haunting portrayal of "Craig's Wife" in this 1936 version of a play by George Kelly. Later on, it was remade as "Harriet Craig" and starred Joan Crawford and Wendell Corey.

Harriet Craig is a manipulative, cold woman married to a man (John Boles) who adores her and therefore can't see her for what she is - a controlling woman obsessed with possessions and status.

This is a difficult role because in order to pull it off, Harriet would have to be a lot more subtle than she is in this movie. Even with an accomplished actress like Russell, that's hard to do because Harriet's actions are so obvious.

In the film, Walter is clueless while she drives everyone else away. I happen to know a Harriet Craig in real life, and in that case, her husband knows but doesn't do anything about it to keep peace. That would have been a more believable choice here.

The film "Harriet Craig" is more drawn out and it takes people a little longer to catch on to what Harriet is really about. This version, probably truer to the play, is directed by Dorothy Arzner and moves quickly. The ending is very striking, and there Russell is most effective.

This was a breakout role for the attractive Russell, and it also proved an excellent part for Joan Crawford. Russell is able to show the tiniest bit of vulnerability in Harriet's nature. I think the Russell version is the stronger film, though both are well worth seeing.

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.