Tweet
Releaseded by 20th Century Fox
Released on: June 26, 2012
Director: Richard Sale
Cast: Anne Baxter, Macdonald Carey, Cecil Kellaway, Catherine McLeod
Year: 1952
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
When a long-married couple think their plane is about to crash the husband confesses to an “affair†three years' prior with his wife's best friend. However, the plane doesn't crash and thus the story of My Wife's Best Friend (not the porn series, unfortunately) begins.
George Mason (Carey) is a typical, boring 50's suburban executive at a lumber company. His uber-bitch of a nagging, annoying wife is Virginia (Baxter), who decries his boring status at every opportunity. Her best friend is Jane (McLeod), more like a third-wheel to the couple than anything else. But, soon, Jane's presence is more than an annoyance - Virginia uses it in pure passive-aggressive fashion to “forgive†her and her husband for their supposed transgression.
Up until the end of the film, then, the story is a showcase for Baxter to run a range of emotions - most of which are purely and very clearly staged. But everyone except George buys into this and, being polite 50s suburban society, demands to know what's going on in their private lives and calls primarily George's character into question. Virginia toys with this in a variety of ways, imagining herself as different historical stereotypes of courageous women or suffering wives. Despite the title, the film is really more like her own vision of herself and how she's able to get even with her husband.
It's only once Virginia finally shuts up and once George finally tells her the whole story that the point of the film can be made: Imagined infidelities are okay as they help today's modern childless couple cope with the stress and strain of society. Even with booze and psychiatry and religion the modern couple is comedically hapless until they actually stop and talk to each other. Why George doesn't give Virginia the full story until the very end is a mystery only to the writers who clearly just used this infuriating setup to try and be funny.
And, oddly enough, even with the title the film isn't about Jane at all - she's barely in the film, rather serving as the “other woman†prop in Virginia's fantasies of escape and revenge. It's horrifically damning on women and their same-sex friendships. Portraying the modern woman as a petty, savage, distrustful, overbearing bitch the film tries to make the resigned point that that's just how quirky women can be and that, as men, we should just suffer through it and it'll be alright in the end. These dingy broads will come to their senses and realize how much they love us through how much tolerance and love we show them. Perfect for Eisenhower's America, I'd say.
Audio/Video/Extras:
Like others released in this series this DVD comes just with the film itself - no extras are presented. The film itself is capably transferred in 4:3 full-frame ratio. The print quality here is just okay, mostly appearing dim overall and containing numerous specks and reel-change dots. But the presentation itself is good enough and black levels actually stay pretty consistent throughout. Audio is again served up in Dolby Digital 2.0 which is far more than the film ever needs.
The Final Word:
A truly mean-spirited comedy that represents the worst escapism possible - or perhaps the best? A husband imagines a fidelity against his annoying, petty wife with her independent but respectful best friend and the wife tries to destroy him for it, imagining herself heroic throughout it all. And the conclusion is supposedly free of the consequences of her awful actions in the story. What bored housewife can't relate? Meaning to be campy and fun, a fantasy of “What if..?†it rather just reinforces the stereotypes of the doddering husband and the crazed, silly but honor-bound wife.
