A LETTER TO THREE WIVES

Joseph L Mankiewicz is still the only writer/director to have won back to back Oscars in both categories, writing and directing. The second was for "All About Eve" in 1950 but in 1949 he won his first pair of Oscars for this classic comedy-drama. "A Letter to Three Wives"is one of the great movies of the 1940's, (it should also have won Best Picture). The letter is written by Addie Ross, (a superb unseen Celeste Holm providing the narration), and the three wives she writes the letter to are Jeanne Crain, Ann Sothern and Linda Darnell and their husbands are, respectively, Jeffrey Lynn, Kirk Douglas and Paul Douglas. The reason for Addie's letter is to inform the women that she's run off with one of their husbands but fails to mention which one. We, and each wife, spend the movie trying to figure out which husband isn't going to be there when the girls get home.

With writing this good and direction this subtle it isn't difficult for Crain, Sothern and Darnell to do their best acting while both Douglas boys are also pretty terrific as is Thelma Ritter, but then when isn't Ritter terrific. It's also a great small town movie, an almost perfect picture of how a certain class of American lived in the years just following the war. I've seen this film countless times and I have never tired of it. Unmissable.