Some Movies For Women's History Month: March 2025

Since we all had so much fun last year with songs about women; how about this year we do movies about women?  Works for me!
And why don't we start with this year's Best Picture Oscar(TM/REG/ALL RIGHTS RESERVED/PAT-PEND):

Great movie!  For my commentary on this feature, please see my blog entitled: TOUGH LOVE IN NEW CANAAN / PART 3.
Here's a link:
www.christopherfreidy.com/blog/tough-love-in-new-canaan-part-3?view=full

These are some of my favorite movies about women.  As the main subject, yes.  But some of them more "revolve" around women, which, it seems to me...is everything.  Meaning, that life itself revolves around women, yes?

​ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (1974)

I just rewatched this movie recently and had the pleasure of seeing it in a grand old theater on a huge screen.  And I think I've realized why I love it.  It reminds me of my mother.  Ellen Burstyn and my mother had quite similar looks and perhaps personalities.  Or maybe my mom was more like the character of Alice Hyatt.  The movie was like a few fractions of a second or so out of sound-synch.  I immediately informed the staff; but it seemed they had no solution.  I was afraid I was going to have to leave...it was like watching a badly dubbed Japanese movie.  And she sings in it, so you're paying close attention to her mouth.  But after a while I adjusted; and she and the movie were just so charming and magical I got used to it; from the entire cast.  I hate to say this but I really did laugh and cry.  I had this song in my head for days...

So, this movie famously spawned a very successful sitcom and it was great and all.  But Alice the TV show was more about her relationships with her coworkers.  The movie is about her relationship with her son from start to finish.  And it is truly about that: the relationships between mothers and their sons.  It seemed very real to me, having been son to a mother with three sons (and a daughter--which is a very different relationship).  I said this movie was magical and charming and it's kind of hard to believe that it was directed by Martin Scorsese.  It has such a light and nimble touch to it.  Heartwarming laughs (blehh, right?).  I mean, why didn't he make more movies like this?  I mean I love DeNiro and the mob and all...but...
Also, this movie had Lelia Goldini in it, in a small part.  She had small parts in three of my favorite 70's movies: this one, The Day of the Locust and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  That's like three classics she was in.  Hey, that's a track record I'd take any day!  And Jodie Foster (God, what a presence!) nearly walks off with the whole movie.

Speaking of...

 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

​I would argue this is a woman centric picture.  It is really the women that figure everything out, try to stop it and the men, whose hesitation (read: not believing the women) screws it all up.

Actually, Veronica Cartwright here, serves as a kind of soothsayer.  I actually call her The Cassandra of Modern Cinema.  Cassandra, you might recall, is a mythological prophetess cursed by Apollo so that her predictions will never be believed and her warnings ignored.  I would say that started with this movie; but really, she was already kind of doing it in The Birds.
Which brings us too...
​
THE BIRDS (1963)

I think the reason this film has stood the test of time (because it's special effects are, let's face it, kinda dated and perhaps a wee bit cheesy (in a good way!) is because it works on levels I don't even think the writer and director were aware of; but maybe they were.  Maybe they were just that good.  It covers WOMEN as everything from "birds," the saucy, sexist British term of affection(?) to The She He Who Must Be Obeyed archetype.  And the she who must be subjugated and/or controlled archetype: in the case of the making of this film, a sad reality.  But really, it comes down to one thing.  One person.  One word.  "Tippi."  Yes, this movie is a Tippi Hedren joint from start to finish.  Her first acting job to boot; in a highly hyped MAJOR MOTION PICTURE.  And you can tell she's a beginner.  But you know what?  It doesn't matter.  She takes that movie by the balls and makes it her own... without even trying.  She made like three movies and she's a household name.  A LEGEND.  How's that for the power of women?  And this movie has one male in it.  And he's hot and handsome and charming...but this movie is about the power dynamics between the women.

Which brings us to Ms. Cartwright again and...

ALIEN (1979) / ALIENS (1986)

I love this scene.  I mean, I really feel like these people are trapped in outer-space with a monster!  And I think we can all relate to this scene nowadays, maybe even more now than then!  I mean, like, it was the height of Disco, Jimmy Carter was President and the Sony Walkman just came out.  Nobody needed an escape shuttle...

So, we've got Ms. Cartwright as the Voice of Reason that No One Listens To (WOMAN'S VOICE) and of course, Ms. Weaver who created in this and the first sequel a female character unlike any before or since; and made her utterly believable (WOMAN'S STRENGTH).

Which brings us again to Ms. Cartwright and...

THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK (1987)

I think this movie is deceptively lightweight.  It's fun and silly and campy fluff, yes.  But I think it taps into a lot of deeper themes about the essence and camaraderie of women.  Their SISTERHOOD, if you will.  And the bonds that women have that men simply cannot and probably will, never understand.  And it's about the way men manipulate women in ways they often fall for; preying on their NATURE.  And I think wanting security is part of women's nature.  Here's a scene that I think points that up.

This movie was cast by a woman, Wallis Nicita; who I met once or twice in my Hollywood "life."  And cast flawlessly, I might add, down to the featured extras.  And the production design by Polly Platt is sheer eye-candy.  I also think it's one of George Miller's best movies.  People go on about the Mad Max saga; but I'll take this or Lorenzo's Oil any day.  That one also starred Ms. Sarandon.

The man knows what to do with a camera.  And when not to. Or what.
Another movie I love that is seemingly about a man; but is maybe really more about the women around him:

The Last Emperor (1987)

The leading lady in that film was Joan Chen, who I instantly fell in love with.  Then she was fabulous on Twin Peaks until she got sucked into a drawer pull(!); and then she disappeared.  Here she is around the time of The Last Emperor:

And then she resurfaced in Didi from last year and, I think, should've been up for all the awards; but she wasn't.

It seems Joan is having something of a comeback and I say, YAY!  Go Joan!

LAW OF DESIRE (1987)

Pedro Almodovar has certainly been a filmmaker who has put women front and center in his work.  For example, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown from 1988.  One of my favorites of his is Law of Desire.  I was on the Anotonio Banderas train right out of the station with that one, baby!  But I was also on the Carmen Maura train.  She was Almodovar's leading lady for a lot of his early films.  In Law of Desire she plays a trans person and yes, it is treated in a rather "campy" way in the movie; but Maura makes the character completely believable.  Maura never seemed to go out of the Spanish film industry (read: dabble in Hollywood); but I thought she was amazing in those early Almodovar films, which took Spanish "passion" and turned the dial up to eleven.  That she never did English language films (as far as I know) can only be seen as a loss for movie lovers.

Now, this next entry is more of a TV show; but I think it was first aired as a TV movie, so I'm counting it.  I was about nine years-old when this show hit the air; but it made a vivid impression on me.  The character of Chrisite Love, as portrayed by Teresa Graves, made an indelible impression, I think, for anyone who saw it.

GET CHRISTIE LOVE!  (1974)

Like most cop shows of the 70's, the main characters had almost zero personal development.  No home lives, no social lives.  No opinions on world events...just case after case.  But Teresa Graves' charm made up for a lot of that built-in lack of character dimension. And left you wanting to know more about her.  And of course there was that outta-sight opening theme song!

An film I really enjoy, more on an intellectual level is entitled: From the Journals of Jean Seberg (1995); as it's about one of my favorite actresses being played by another of my favorite actresses:

​FROM THE JOURNALS OF JEAN SEBERG (1995)

Now, I've never seen that trailer before and I find it odd that it doesn't feature the star of the film: Mary Beth Hurt.  Ms. Hurt plays Jean Seberg, narrating her life from beyond the beyond in a very dry and analytical way.  Is the movie a documentary?  Maybe.  Is it a narrative? Maybe.  Is it film analysis?  Maybe.  Is it all those things and more?  Definitely.  Ms. Hurt, in "real life," had apparently been baby-sat by Ms. Seberg; and although the two actresses are really nothing alike; that dichotomy  makes it all the more fascinating.  The film's creator had also done a movie in the same style about Rock Hudson: Rock Hudson's Home Movies (1992).  Mark Rappaport is the filmmaker.  And I must say, he has to be one of the most unique and original filmmakers...well, ever.  He deals in semiotics in a fascinating and understandable way.  And it seems he's kind of a vitrual unknown...still.  A genius?  Yeah, probably.

And since I can't find a clip of Ms. Hurt in "Journals" here's the next best thing.  Her as "Joey" in Woody Allen's Interiors; being all 1970's in a Me Decade-Self Psych-Out.  Roll the clip!

You know, I tend to put women on pedestals.  Or should I say, the "idea" of WOMAN.  But that's not productive.  Women are just as subject to hubris as men.  Just as able and willing to go against their nuturing nature; like many of the current female politicos on The Hill nowadays, capice?  So, here's a fun movie with a true KAREN as the star and fear not, she receives her comeuppance (and then some!).  And this has to be the first and only movie with a "Female Glory Hole."  Hey, what's good for the gander...capice? 

​DESPERATE LIVING (1977) 
​Okay,,,ah...I was just looking at the trailer for John Water's Desperate Living and even that is just a bit too much to inflict here.  Let me see if I can find a scene with Mink Stole as "Peggy Gravel," the KAREN in question.  Please hold...

But at the other extreme; but somehow more uplifting and hopeful (I hope); is WOMAN as the ultimate sacrificer; because when you think about it, what with this being A MAN'S WORLD; women always have to sacrifice something in this life.  But there is always nobility.  There is always hope.  HOPE as WOMAN.
Here is a movie that stars Bette Davis:

DARK VICTORY (1939) 
SPOILER ALERT:  If you haven't seen this movie and want to be clobbered over the head with a crying jag; stop reading now and don't watch the clip! Watch the movie!

Bette starts out as a jaded, petulant, spoiled rich girl who finds out she's got a brain tumor.  Falls in love with her doctor.  Is transformed by that love and decides to simply not think about the inevitable.
​

So those are my choices for 2025.  Who was it who said, to paraphrase, that the history of Cinema was a bunch of boys pointing cameras at girls?  I don't know; but when you think about it; it kinda makes sense.  (Oh, it was Godard, according to the Jean Seberg trailer).

CFR   4/3/25