‘The Women’ 1939


In 1939, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released a film adaptation of the Broadway hit play ‘The Women’ by Clare Boothe[1903-1987] which contains extended sequences inside a beauty salon. Directed by George Cukor [1899-1983] from a script written by Anita Loos [1888-1981] and Jane Murfin [1884-1955], it contained an all-female cast which included Norma Shearer [1902-1983], Joan Crawford [c.1904-1977], Rosalind Russell [1907-1976], Mary Boland [1882-1965], Paulette Goddard [1910-1990] and Joan Fontaine [1917-2013].

Treatments

The movie opens outside Sydney’s beauty salon on Park Avenue, New York – the name pays homage to Sydney Guilaroff [1907-1997], the chief hairstylist at MGM at the time. According to Woodhead the set design took its inspiration from the Fifth Avenue salon of Elizabeth Arden [1881-1966] (Woodhead, 2003, p. 250). Apparently, Arden saw the salon set when her ex-employee Hedda Hopper [1885-1966] – who appeared in the film as the society columnist Dolly Dupuyster – took Elizabeth to the studio to see it. Arden was apparently unhappy about it, perhaps because many details seem to have been taken from the new Fifth Avenue salon of Helena Rubinstein [1872-1965] which opened in 1936.

See also: Rubinstein Day of Beauty

The movie opens by following Mrs. Van Adams from just outside Sydney’s salon into the reception where she is booked in. We then pass to an upstairs waiting room where a Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Carter enter and begin looking at a display of miniatures – a possible reference to Helena Rubinstein’s collection of miniature rooms on display in her New York salon – which Mrs. Carter describes as a “sure sign of a petty mind”. The two women are then ushered into an examination room where Mrs. Spencer has her face viewed under a dermascope.

dermoscope

Above: Dermascope examination.

Mrs. Carter pushes the attendant to one side, looks down the dermascope herself and exclaims “I hate to tell you, dear, but your skin makes the Rockies look like chiffon velvet.”

1929-viewer

Above: View through the dermascope, an instrument similar to the Derma-Lens promoted by Helena Rubinstein. Mrs. Spencer appears to be wearing false eyelashes.

See also: Complexion Analysers (Dermoscopes)

We then track the women through a series of rooms where we see:

1. A client attached to a machine for measuring basal metabolic rate.

Measuring basal metabolic rate

Above: Measuring basal metabolic rate by calculating oxygen consumption while resting. This was a common measurement used by an in-house doctor to help determine a client’s diet plan.

2. A tiled room with clients taking foam and mud baths.

foam-mud

Above: Foam bath (left) and mud bath (right). Both foam baths and mud baths were used in slimming programs with mud baths also used in curative treatments such as relieving the symptoms of rheumatism. A woman wearing a mud pack on her face used in one of the trailers for the film was deleted from the final cut.

3. A booth where a client is receiving a body massage.

Massage treatment

Above: Body massage treatment. These were used for general relaxation but particular massage movements were also used in slimming or contouring treatments.

4. A larger room with clients relaxing under sun lamps.

solarium

Above: Solarium. A nurse is also seen giving one client a body massage. The women are lying on beach sand, a feature of Helena Rubinstein’s ’Sun Clinic’ available in her New York salon.

At the start of this sequence an older woman – who is the subject of a lot of comments as she is going to marry a jockey – disappears up a spiral staircase wearing only a towel. She is heading for a steam bath or infra-red treatment, edited out of the final cut of the film but depicted in a 1939 article in LIFE magazine.

5. A gymnasium with clients exercising on horizontal bars.

Women exercising on gymnasium bars

Above: Women exercising on gymnasium bars led by an instructor. Rooms like this with a gymnasium bar, mirror and gym mat on the floor were very common in salons that provided calisthenic treatments. A second sequence, later the movie, features Peggy Day (Joan Fontaine) and Sylvia Fowler (Rosalind Russell) going through a series of exercises against the wall and on a gym mat. Sylvia ends the scene by going off to have a paraffin wax bath which unfortunately is not shown.

See also: Paraffin Wax Treatments

6. A room with bicycles and a rowing machine.

bikes

Above: Exercise bicycles and rowing machines were used to build up strength and fitness and to help maintain or lose weight.

7. A cubicle where a diathermy treatment is being conducted.

Diathermy treatment

Above: Diathermy treatment with nurse in attendance, possibly based on Elizabeth Arden’s Vienna Youth Mask.

See also: Arden Vienna Youth Mask

8. A facial booth where a client is having a face mask applied during a facial treatment.

Facial treatment which includes a face mask

Above: Facial treatment which includes a face mask.

9. A room where an attendant is using hot wax to remove superfluous hair from the forearm of a client.

Hot-wax treatment

Above: Hot wax treatment to remove hair from the forearm.

Soon after this we move to the hairdressing salon where Mrs. Sylvia Howard Fowler (Rosalind Russell) is receiving a manicure from Olga (Dennie Moore [1902-1978]).

Manicure treatment

Above: Sylvia finds out from Olga that Stephen Haines is having an affair with Crystal Allen. The nail polish looks to be from Glazo.

See also: Glazo

Sylvia is getting a manicure while her hair dries and will soon learn from the manicurist that the husband of Mary Haines (Norma Shearer) is having an affair with perfume counter salesgirl Crystal Allen (Joan Crawford), the event that propelled the plot for the rest of the movie.

First Posted: 6th April 2015
Last Update: 8th April 2024

Sources

Movie of the week: The women. (1939). LIFE, September 4, 28-29.

Stromberg, H. (Producer), & Cukor, G. (Director). (1939). The women [Motion picture]. United States: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Woodhead, L. (2003). War paint: Miss Elizabeth Arden and Madame Helena Rubinstein. Their lives, their times, their rivalry. London: Virago.