How Hollywood's greatest actresses proved women didn't need leading men to rule the box office in one of cinema's most daring films. Nineteen thirty-nine is generally regarded as the greatest year in cinema history, producing such outstanding films as Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Goodbye, Mr.Chips, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights, Stagecoach, and Ninotchka. No less a critically acclaimed or financially successful movie release that year was The Women, a film now regarded as one of the major films of what was a stellar year in Hollywood film production. But what made The Women unique is that not a single male actor appears in it, not even as a voice off-screen. Its all-female cast included some of the finest actresses of their era—Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, and Butterfly McQueen—with costumes and sets designed by MGM's master stylists, Adrian and Cedric Gibbons. Based on the hit Broadway play by Clare Boothe Luce, the film adaptation went through several screenwriters—including a failing F. Scott Fitzgerald—before a final script was developed by Jane Murfin and Anita Loos. In Jungle Red!, Illeana Douglas explains how the film came together, the infighting among the cast both on and off camera, and how three gay men—director George Cukor, Adrian, and set designer Cedric Gibbons—combined to produce a stylish film that exposes the many faces of womanhood.

本書は、男性不在という大胆な演出で映画史に輝く「ザ・ウィメン」の深奥を、熱烈な敬愛と共に解き明かす一冊です。名女優たちが火花を散らす舞台裏で、いかに多面的な女性像が形作られたのか。著者の筆致は、華やかな虚飾を剥ぎ取り、そこにある強固な意志と連帯の本質を鮮烈に描き出しています。 鋭利な戯曲が、映像という魔術で贅を尽くした芸術へと昇華される過程は圧巻です。原作の辛辣な知性と、映画版で補完された圧倒的な視覚美。その相乗効果がもたらす熱量を本書は克明に捉えています。媒体を超えて受け継がれる表現の真髄に触れるとき、あなたは時代を超越した真の「美」の正体を目撃するでしょう。