blanche-2

Working Girl from 1988 - so much hair, so much makeup, and the World Trade Center Towers! What memories of the '80s in New York.

Brilliantly directed by Mike Nichols, Working Girl sports an amazing cast: Harrison Ford, Melanie Griffith, Sigourney Weaver, Joan Cusack, and Alec Baldwin.

The smaller roles were played by equally impressive actors: Olympia Dukakis, Nora Dunn, Oliver Platt, Zach Grenier, Amy Aquino, Philip Bosco, Robert Easton, and Kevin Spacey - who took the role at the last minute and learned his lines on the way to the shoot.

And for some atmosphere (another word for extras), no less than Ricki Lake, David Duchovny - and Peter Duchin's orchestra!

Melanie Griffith is Tess McGill, an ambitious and clever young woman who isn't taken seriously and keeps switching departments at the investment firm where she works. She finally lands a job as a secretary to Katherine Parker (Weaver) who a) won't sexually harass her; and b) is open to new ideas.

In fact, to the untrained eye, Katherine seems sweet, but she's a complete snake. When Tess naively brings her an excellent idea, Katherine claims it went nowhere.

While her boss is hospitalized with a broken leg, Tess sees on Katherine's computer that she's stolen the idea. She gets to work to put the deal together herself, claiming to be Katherine's assistant.

As Tess' business partner/love interest, Harrison Ford is wonderful as Jack Trainer, flirtatious, endearing, and playful. His changing his shirt while the whole office watches, then bows, is adorable. As Tess' friend, Joan Cusack brings her robust persona to the role.

The star role was Melanie Griffith's, and despite addiction problems dating the shoot, she's fantastic with that little girl voice, natural sex appeal, and determination underneath. It was her star turn and deservedly so.

Funny, charming, and filled with excellent performances, Working Girl is a great underdog film with important lessons about a healthy disregard for rules and innovative thinking.

It's also a reminder of what it was like to live in New York in the '80s and a sober realization of how the world has changed.

From 1939, The Women, directed by George Cukor with a huge all-female cast including Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Virginia Grey, Mary Boland, Marjorie Main, Virginia Weidler, and many others.

From the play by Clare Booth Luce, The Women focuses on the wealthy gossipy stereotypes epitomized by the very unpleasant Sylvia (Rosalind Russell) character.

Shearer plays the lovely Mary Haines, madly in love with her husband Stephen, only to learn he is cheating on her with a perfume counter saleswoman, Crystal (Joan Crawford). She's the last to know. In spite of her mother's advice to let it go, she files for divorce and heads for Reno.

There she meets other potential divorcees including the miserable Fontaine, and Goddard, who has been seeing Sylvia's husband. Loud mouth Sylvia shows up soon enough.

Toward the beginning of this black and white film, there is a too-long color fashion show. Cukor may have thought there was too much dialogue.

My favorite performances are Lucille Watson as Mary's mother, Marjorie Main as the Reno landlady, and Mary Boland as the Countess, who falls for a cowboy singer and punctuates her dialogue with French. A scream.

Russell does a fabulous job making you despise Sylvia. Shearer is sympathetic, and her scenes with Little Mary (Weidler) are beautiful. Weidler is adorable. Crawford as the mean-spirited gold-digger Crystal is terrific.

I have to say, I wait for Crawford to show up at the end with that incredible sparkling gown that picks up the light. A knockout. In the same scene is Russell's gorgeous black gown.

While its perception of women, men, and marriage may seem on the low end, The Women is still delightful and beautifully directed. The film shows one facet of women - idle gossips; men - cheaters; marriage - hold onto your man no matter what.

While that isn't the whole picture, let's face it, gossip lives on social media, married men pick up women on dating sites, and marriage isn't easy. Don't be too hard on these 1939 women.

The Phantom Shot from 1947 is a short British quota film. I admit I wasn't familiar with the cast members. Directed by Mario Zampi, who went om to produce and direct films in the '50s.

The detective (John Stuart) in the case breaks the fourth wall throughout the film and invites the audience to solve the murder oh a despised country gentleman.

We get to see the various suspects and are taken through where they were at the time of the murder and their various motives.

Once the murderer is revealed, the detective takes us back through the case and shows us how he figured out the identity of the killer.

Mildly interesting.