L'obsession de Madame Craig

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.

George Kelly's Pulitzer Prize winning 1925 play receives its second screen treatment under the direction of Dorothy Arzner, with Rosalind Russell as the materialistic and calculating Harriet Craig and John Boles as her romantically naive husband. The story is very simple, Harriet cares more about House than Home and marries, quite openly, for financial security and social status. She regards other aspects of family and marriage such as sex, children, and simple comforts of home and family with indifference. Her living room is the outward expression of her soul, and she guards it tenaciously, forbidding anyone to muss a cushion, foul it with cigarette smoke, shift the position of a vase, drop a speck of dirt. As the drama unfolds, the significance of this setting is laid on with a trowel. Harriet's selfishness finally does her in as the blindly loving husband comes to his senses. It's a fascinating story because Harriet is an extreme example of a certain human type - the materialistic, status-obsessed neat freak. Two famous examples: Joan Crawford, known for her obsessive cleanliness (and of course her own interpretation of Harriet in the 1950 film version of this play); Martha Stewart, known for her devotion to the well-kept house and exacting attention to domestic appearances and presentations. The flaw of the film is carried over from the flaw in the original play - the husband's character is too arbitrary. It is not enough for us to be told by sundry characters that sweet Mr. Craig never should have fallen in love with a shrew like Harriet and that love is blind. His transformation from devotion to sudden doubt to violent hostility happens too quickly and neatly, but the reasons for his progression are understandable.

This treatment is more or less a photographed stage play which is not so bad here because the play in question made its points by various combinations of talking heads. The key to winning over a film audience under these circumstances lies not so much in cinematic derring do than in good casting and this film serves it up deliciously. Russell is flawless, playing what could have been caricature as a three-dimensional human being. She is no better or worse than Joan Crawford would be 14 years later, just different. As the house maid, Jane Darwell fits the role like a foot in a custom built shoe. Her best moments come when her character switches personality depending on whether she is talking to Mr. or Mrs. Craig; the shifting attitude helps establish the nature of the relationships in the story. Especially good is John Boles who has never registered to me as an actor. He usually comes across as a barely animated cardboard cutout, but here he is set loose on an emotionally charged arc and makes it all the way without a stumble. Billie Burke again proves what a versatile actress she could be as the friendly widow next door.

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.