Craig's Wife | |
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Directed by | Dorothy Arzner |
Written by | Mary C. McCall Jr. |
Based on | Craig's Wife 1925 play by George Kelly |
Produced by | Harry Cohn |
Starring | Rosalind Russell John Boles Billie Burke |
Cinematography | Lucien Ballard |
Edited by | Viola Lawrence |
Music by | R.H. Bassett Emil Gerstenberger Milan Roder |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 74 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Craig's Wife is a 1936 American drama film starring Rosalind Russell as a domineering wife. [1] It was based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1925 Broadway play of the same name by George Kelly (the uncle of Grace Kelly), [2] and directed by Dorothy Arzner. Former MGM star William Haines was the film's production designer. Previously filmed in 1928, Craig's Wife was remade in 1950 as Harriet Craig , rewritten (and updated) as a vehicle for Joan Crawford and co-starring Wendell Corey.
Twenty-four hours in the life of Harriet Craig, and the home life she has created for herself and her husband. Harriet values material things more than her husband and goes to great lengths to protect her life as she has created it, regardless of what the outcomes are to those around her. The story's message is stated by Mr. Craig's aunt, Ellen Austen, who says, "Those who live for themselves, are left to themselves," as one by one, all her disgusted family and servants abandon her, leaving her entirely on her own. [3]
Anna Christie is a play in four acts by Eugene O'Neill. It made its Broadway debut at the Vanderbilt Theatre on November 2, 1921. O'Neill received the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this work. According to historian Paul Avrich, the original of Anna Christie was Christine Ell, an anarchist cook in Greenwich Village, who was the lover of Edward Mylius, a Belgian-born radical living in England who libeled the British king George V.
Catherine Rosalind Russell was an American actress, model, comedian, screenwriter, and singer, known for her role as fast-talking newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940), opposite Cary Grant, as well as for her portrayals of Mame Dennis in the 1956 stage and 1958 film adaptations of Auntie Mame, and Rose in Gypsy (1962). A noted comedienne, she won all five Golden Globes for which she was nominated. Russell won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1953 for her portrayal of Ruth in the Broadway show Wonderful Town. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress four times during her career before being awarded a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1973.
Marie Josephine Hull was an American stage and film actress who also was a director of plays. She had a successful 50-year career on stage while taking some of her better known roles to film. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the movie Harvey (1950), a role she originally played on the Broadway stage. She was sometimes credited as Josephine Sherwood.
Mame is a musical with a book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. Originally titled My Best Girl, it is based on the 1955 novel Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis and the 1956 Broadway play of the same name by Lawrence and Lee. A period piece set in New York City and spanning the Great Depression and World War II, it focuses on eccentric bohemian Mame Dennis, whose famous motto is "Life is a banquet and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death." Her fabulous life with her wealthy friends is interrupted when the young son of her late brother arrives to live with her. They cope with the Depression in a series of adventures.
The Women is a 1936 American play, a comedy of manners by Clare Boothe Luce. Only women comprise the cast.
Robert Emmet Sherwood was an American playwright and screenwriter.
Frieda Inescort was a Scottish actress best known for creating the role of Sorel Bliss in Noël Coward's play Hay Fever on Broadway. She also played the shingled lady in John Galsworthy's 1927 Broadway production Escape and Caroline Bingley in the 1940 film of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
Dorothy Emma Arzner was an American film director whose career in Hollywood spanned from the silent era of the 1920s into the early 1940s. With the exception of long-time silent film director Lois Weber, from 1927 until her retirement from feature directing in 1943, Arzner was the only female director working in Hollywood. She was one of a very few women able to establish a successful and long career in Hollywood as a film director until the 1970s. Arzner made a total of twenty films between 1927 and 1943 and launched the careers of a number of Hollywood actresses, including Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, and Lucille Ball. Arzner was the first woman to join the Directors Guild of America and the first woman to direct a sound film.
Lucile Watson was a Canadian actress, long based in the United States. She was "famous for her roles of formidable dowagers."
George Edward Kelly was an American playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor. He began his career in vaudeville as an actor and sketch writer. He became best known for his satiric comedies, including The Torch-Bearers (1922) and The Show-Off (1924). He won the Pulitzer Prize for Craig's Wife (1925).
Nydia Eileen Westman was an American actress and singer of stage, screen, and television.
Harriet Craig is a 1950 American drama film starring Joan Crawford. The screenplay by Anne Froelick and James Gunn was based upon the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1925 play Craig's Wife, by George Kelly. The film was directed by Vincent Sherman, produced by William Dozier, and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Harriet Craig is the second of three cinematic collaborations between Sherman and Crawford, the others being The Damned Don't Cry (1950) and Goodbye, My Fancy (1951).
Auntie Mame is a 1958 American Technirama Technicolor comedy film based on the 1955 novel of the same name by Edward Everett Tanner III and the 1956 play of the same name by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. This film version stars Rosalind Russell and was directed by Morton DaCosta. It is not to be confused with a musical version of the same story that appeared on Broadway in 1966 and was later made into a 1974 film, Mame, starring Lucille Ball as the titular character.
Genevieve Tobin was an American actress.
Elisabeth Risdon was an English film actress. She appeared in more than 140 films from 1913 to 1952. A beauty in her youth, she usually played in society parts. In later years in films she switched to playing character parts.
Alma Kruger was an American actress.
Bergetta "Dorothy" Peterson was an American actress. She began her acting career on Broadway before appearing in more than eighty Hollywood films.
Craig's Wife is a 1925 play written by American playwright George Kelly. It won the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and has been adapted for three feature films.
Nora Cecil was an English-born American actress whose 30-year career spanned both the silent and sound film eras.
Craig's Wife is a 1928 American silent drama film directed by William C. deMille and starring Irene Rich, Warner Baxter and Virginia Bradford. It was based on the 1925 play Craig's Wife by George Kelly. Subsequent film adaptations followed in 1936 as Craig's Wife and 1950 as Harriet Craig.