Craig's Wife-1936-A '30s rarity: a Hollywood picture written and directed by women

The original review from 1936.



October 2, 1936

THE SCREEN; The Music Hall Presents a Skillful Film Version of That Pulitzer Prize Play, 'Craig's Wife.'

By FRANK S. NUGENT

Published: October 2, 1936

It may be tempting the fates to say so, but we cannot resist noting that Hollywood appears to have found the magic stone for converting good plays into better pictures. With Samuel Goldwyn's excellent transcription of "Dodsworth" delighting Rivoli audiences, Columbia has hastened to the Radio City Music Hall to show what it has been able to do with "Craig's Wife," the George Kelly play which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1926 and had 360 performances on Broadway before it went permanently to rest between the covers of a Burns Mantle annual.



Columbia, to be quick about it, has been able to do quite well with Mr. Kelly's drama of domestic infelicity. Mary McCall Jr. has retained all that mattered of the original lines, Dorothy Arzner—Hollywood's only woman director—has given them a full hearing without sacrificing camera mobility, and a supple cast headed by Rosalind Russell and John Boles has translated the whole into a thoroughly engrossing photoplay which has a point to make, keeps it constantly in view and drives it home viciously at the end. "People who live to themselves are generally left to themselves." That is Mr. Kelly's story and "Craig's Wife" makes the best of it.



Since ten years have passed since the play was shown here, a brief reminder of its materials may be in order. Harriet Craig was a woman with a purpose—she wanted a home, symbol of permanence, position and security. To attain it she married and to retain it she had to obtain full control of her husband, modeling him into just another bit of house furnishing. Always it was the house that counted; dustless, friendless, a temple of material things which, if she guarded well, would be hers for the keeping.



You may remember how the doting husband realizes the insignificant rôle he has been playing in his wife's life. It comes when circumstances threaten to involve him in a murder case, and his wife, fearing that even a whisper of scandal might disturb the outward serenity of her comfortable existence, insists that he protect her by remaining silent. So Craig—like the niece who had fled with her young man, like the aunt who felt the house had died and its rooms been laid out, like the housekeeper, the maid and the kindly neighbor—goes away. And Craig's wife, come at last into full possession of the home, finds it a fearful and an empty thing.



The entire weight of the drama depends upon the malign effectiveness of its central character and Miss Russell, here enjoying her first real opportunity in Hollywood, gives a viciously eloquent performance. Mr. Boles, although sincere and natural in the rôle of the husband, is unable to keep his audience from jeering in that dramatically feeble moment of rebellion when he breaks crockery and spills cigarette ashes. That, admittedly, was more Mr. Kelly's fault than Mr. Boles's The other players are uniformly splendid, with special mention of Alma Kruger as the aunt, Elizabeth Risdon as the housekeeper, Nydia Westman as the maid. Billie Burke as the flower-gathering neighbor, Thomas Mitchell as Fergus Passmore and Robert Allen as the niece's suitor.





CRAIG'S WIFE, as adapted by Mary C. McCall Jr. from George Kelly's play; directed by Dorothy Arzner and produced by Columbia Pictures. At the Radio City Music Hall.

Harriet Craig . . . . . Rosalind Russell

Walter Craig . . . . . John Boles

Mrs. Frazier . . . . . Billie Burke

Mrs. Harold . . . . . Jane Darwell

Ethel Landreth . . . . . Dorothy Wilson

Miss Austen . . . . . Alma Kruger

Fergus Passmore . . . . . Thomas Mitchell

Billy Birkmire . . . . . Raymond Walburn

Gene Fredericks . . . . . Robert Allen

Mrs. Landreth . . . . . Elizabeth Risdon

Mazie . . . . . Nydia Westman

Adelaide Passmore . . . . . Kathleen Burke



I tried to upload this last week but it did not seed,so I try again.