A Woman's Face (1941)

Once again, George Cukor directs an MGM feature with a feminine focus in the title and a nasty role for Joan Crawford. This one has a tighter plot and is set in Sweden, thanks to the play on which it's based. (OK, I'm having trouble finding good info on the play, but there was a Swedish adaptation in 1938.)

Blackmail ringleader Anna (Crawford) has spent most of her life with burn scars on the right half of her face, aversions to fire and mirrors, and misanthropy, especially toward beautiful people, tho she makes an exception for seductive Torsten (Conrad Veidt). When she unexpectedly meets a great and charitable plastic surgeon, Gustaf (Melvyn Douglas)...well, see how Crawford usually looked on screen in those days. Anna's a lot less bitter once people admire her appearance, but wickedness doesn't dry up overnight, especially if you've been keeping wicked company. In particular, Torsten hopes she still has what it takes to serve as a governess to his four-year-old nephew, Lars-Erik (Richard Nichols), only to bump him off to secure Torsten a bigger inheritance from Uncle Magnus (Albert Bassermann).

The Women (1939)

Possibly the most popular '39 film I hadn't seen yet, it stands out for having an all-female cast of more than 130. This includes the servants, the children, and even allegedly the animals (except for the roaring logo lion). Every contemporary major MGM actress except Myrna Loy and Greta Garbo participated. No wonder it's been remade a couple times, albeit less successfully and once with men.

If you want something that passes the Bechdel test with flying colors, however, keep looking: The trailer's parenthetical subtitle aptly notes, "...and it's all about men!" Must've been the best way to sell tickets. Oh, the ladies talk about other things once in a while, especially each other, but the plot mainly concerns a mother (Norma Shearer) learning about a shameless gold digger (perhaps Joan Crawford's nastiest role) wrecking her home, so to speak. Everyone else will eagerly share an opinion on it, leaving us to wonder what they'd do without men in their lives.

Johnny Guitar (1954)

I've almost never purchased films, but I did when the last local video store was closing, only to watch them once and sell them to the Record Exchange or, if they were supposedly too scratched, leave them at the office for others to claim. JG had been the only tape in my home for a while. I decided to give it a whirl partly to take a break from my Halloweeny viewings and partly to reduce the space of my possessions in preparation for a move. Might I say, I never knew how much better movies looked on DVD until I went back to VHS.

For much of the movie, Sterling Hayden's title character seems almost incidental to the plot, a quiet bystander mildly entertained by the tension between others. Tough tomboy saloon keeper Vienna (Joan Crawford) summons him to town just before a mob comes and demands the whereabouts of her semi-boyfriend, the Dancin' Kid, and his buddies, who may have a criminal record but probably had no part in the latest felonies of which they're accused. The mob's primary motivator, Emma (an extraordinarily acid Mercedes McCambridge), insists that Vienna should hang with the rest, but Vienna notes two likely ulterior motives: (1) warped feelings of "love" for the Kid, such that Emma wants to kill him yet also is jealous of Vienna; and (2) land greed, intolerant of anyone else having a saloon at the outskirts of town where a railroad station is planned. Of course, this being a western, it won't do for Johnny to remain aloof to the end....