With a "friend" like Addie Ross who needs enemies? Deborah, Rita and Lora Mae are the three wives of the film's title. And Addie Ross is going to deliver them that devastating letter. The trio of young wives are good friends, Addie very much the outsider whom they keep a wary eye on. And wary they should be because each of their husbands is quite clearly smitten with Addie. The men look upon Addie as a goddess. The women look upon her with disdain. Addie knows how they feel about her. And boy will she ever get her revenge. The trio of wives are about to embark on a daylong cruise, chaperoning a group of underprivileged children. And just before the boat sets off Addie has that letter delivered to them. She tells them she is leaving town for good...and she has taken one of their husbands with her. And Addie really twists the knife by not saying which husband it is she has run off with. So now our three wives face a long day of torment, each wondering if she will be the one to return home to find her husband gone. That Addie Ross, what a stinker.As the cruise goes on we, through a series of flashbacks, see how each wife's marriage is somewhat strained, why each husband may be tempted to run away. First up is Deborah, a simple farm girl who met her husband-to-be Brad in the Navy. Deborah is desperately uncomfortable in Brad's upper class social circle. And also very uncomfortable with the fact that everyone in that circle always assumed Brad was going to marry Addie. Next comes the telling of Rita's story. She's a successful career woman, writing scripts for popular radio programs. Her husband George, a humble teacher, is a little insecure about the fact his wife is more successful than he is. It all comes to a head at an exceedingly awkward dinner Rita hosts for her boss. That the dinner happens to be on George's birthday, a fact Rita forgot until a present arrives from Addie, doesn't help matters. Finally we come to Lora Mae. She's married to Porter, perhaps the richest man in town. Did he ever want her for anything more than her beauty? Did she ever want him for anything more than his money? Is there any love here at all? And why, the first time Porter brings Lora Mae to his home, did he have a picture of Addie on top of his piano? So the women all wonder who's lost her husband and we wonder right along with them. The story is very engaging, wonderfully scripted with plenty of good wit sprinkled throughout. Addie narrates the story but director Joseph L. Mankiewicz uses a smart device to keep her largely shrouded in mystery. The less we know about this supposed goddess the more intriguing things become. Addie sets the plot in motion but it is the three wives whom she torments who carry the film. And each of the three actresses plays her part wonderfully. Jeanne Crain plays the bundle of insecurities that is Deborah. This is clearly the most sympathetic character. You know if her husband leaves she'll fall to pieces and Crain really makes you feel for the poor woman. The other two women are much more assured. But Rita comes to realize maybe she was a little too assured for her own good. Has she emasculated, and ultimately lost, her husband? Ann Sothern plays this part and her interactions with Kirk Douglas, playing her husband, are top-notch. And then there is Linda Darnell, playing Lora Mae. Easy to see why Porter would want Lora Mae, Darnell's a stunner. But Darnell has more than her good looks going for her, she's a very strong actress too and she gives it as good as she gets with Paul Douglas, playing Porter. The rest of the film is very good but Lora Mae's story is a cut above, helped greatly by the powerful performances of Darnell and Paul Douglas. If Lora Mae was just in this marriage for money her husband running off would actually be a good thing. But maybe there's love there after all. Darnell captures that ambiguity perfectly.It's the women's picture, they're the unquestioned stars. But both Kirk Douglas and Paul Douglas have very important parts to play in the film's success as well. Jeffrey Lynn, playing Deborah's husband, has much less to do but what he does do he does capably. There's also a fun appearance from Thelma Ritter providing some comic relief in the role of a house servant. And of course, hovering over the whole picture, is the looming specter of Addie Ross. Mankiewicz uses her in just the right way to add another layer to the film's mystery. The film presents a smart, engrossing story. The three wives weave in and out of each other's stories, everything ties together beautifully. The relationships the wives have with their respective husbands are most important but the relationships they have with each other are very telling too. By the time that boat finally docks and the women race home to hopefully find their husbands you're right on the edge of your seat. Few romantic films are as dramatic as this. This is a very well thought-out, well-crafted, and ultimately very satisfying film.

I was drawn into watching this movie because it was a mystery. Three wives get a letter from a woman saying she left town with one of their husbands, yet all 3 have to spend the day on a boat full of poor kids wondering via flashbacks if it was their husband. It seemed to be a unique spin on the classic 40's mystery. Actually more unique than I first thought.Of course there was the 40's stereotypes, when women were "broads" and men were "big gorillas" or "mugs". And of course, both sexes were always dressed to the teeth. But if this portrayal of the high life in the 40's were accurate, the entire generation would have died before 1950 of alcohol poisoning from drinking martinis every few minutes, or of lung cancer from chain smoking filterless cigarettes.But as I continued to watch, the first thing I noticed was "one of these things is not like the others". That being the casting of Paul Douglas as one of the husbands. 3 woman, considered hot by 40's terms and one of their husbands looks like Larry, Moe and Curly's dad? Seriously miscast and a blaring flaw in the believability of the film. I get that she married him for his money, but Moe's dad? Not buying it.Then, it got really strange. Suddenly, during the flashbacks, you hear sound effects that sound exactly like the auto-tune effect used by today's pop stars. At first I thought I was imagining it, or maybe somebody slip acid into my coffee. But there it was, auto-tune in a 40's flick, apparently achieved via "talk box", which I thought wasn't available till Walsh and Frampton used it in the 60's. Anyway totally unexpected, yes, ahead of it's time, but at the same time extremely freaky.But the plot drags along until you lose track of how many cigarettes and martinis are consumed. You keep waiting for one of the wives to call their husband a "big lug"... or for one of husbands to say "why I oughta" or "why you" and give Paul Douglas a double eye poke or maybe hit him in the head with a lead pipe followed by a boink sound effect. Better yet a boink sound effect using auto-tune.Then as the story winds down in eager anticipation awaiting to find out which big lug left his wife to run away with some unknown dame who only has a name, you pretty much know the ending. But at the same time you never really know due to the vagueness of Moe's dad. Was he making up his confession to cover for who they led you to believe it was? Or, was he really just a "big gorilla" whose dame (aka:broad) forgave him? The world may never know (or be able to consume that amount of alcohol and nicotine) but the glass that falls over for no reason and breaks at the end may only help add to the mystery rather than solve it.

And I thought this was a piece of fluff!!! the writing is smarter than in any movie I've seen all year. How predictive of our present undereducated public. The schoolteacher in the group is an educated man, not like many of the sad things in the classrooms today. And the script beautifully points out why: follow the money. we get what we pay for and our country is failing because of our failing schools, and our gullible masses, the result of an educational system that is 42nd in the world. Spoiler: I saw this as a teenager. And I remembered that one of the husbands HAD run away with Addie, but thought better of it and returned. Yet the line, "She'll know tomorrow morning" and Jeanne crain's kiss on the cheek to Paul Douglas for 'admitting' it, now makes me think that yes, her husband really did run away with this husband-stealer. The times have really changed: We wouldn't be dating our bosses in today's world. On the other hand, corporate wives and husbands still lick the behinds of anyone in the corporation who can give them a hand up the ladder. Our level of corruption is much higher. One mystery: the script has the mom lecturing Linda Darnell on not being a tramp, yet when the boss comes to pick her up, she tries to shoo her daughter out to the car. It's Darnell who insists that she gets picked up properly. Paradox or contradiction?Really want to know now how it actually ended. Was Paul telling the truth or we he just trying to soften the blow? Great writing. Boy, do I miss it. Kinda sad when I have to turn to foreign movies, old movies or the occasional indie to find any movies of substance that have BOTH excellent writing and acting. Just another symptom.

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)Oh, a real "woman's picture," if a little sideways. Think of it--one of these three women is possibly going to lose her husband, but they all go on a little charity jaunt all day anyway, that payphone only a tease, not really an option. Is it because of confidence? Yes, but not in their men. Confidence in themselves. Almost.The opening: a sultry female voice-over waxes in sharp grey shades of film noir--merely grey because it's a cheery morning along the Hudson, and her tone is catty, and we are filled with curiosity rather than dread. But it hooks you. The plot contrivance (a good one, it turns out), is from a "Cosmopolitan Magazine novel," and that means pre-Helen Gurley Brown Cosmo, so there are enough guarded pricks and foils and twists to warrant a whole weekend of soaps, condensed here in 103 minutes. And then there are the serious issues of a woman's role in post-war America, at least relative to her man. It's good stuff, and not insensitive.Not that this is quite a masterpiece--the scene where everyone is bored listening to the radio is truly boring for us, too, the low point--but elsewhere it has lots of charming quirks and truly warm sentiment right from the start. And there is consistent acting (Kirk Douglas, for one, is a charmer). So hang in there, it really does get better as it goes. As the present tense plot dissolves three times into flashbacks, one for each couple, the stories build, and intertwine, so that by the third flashback there is genuine suspense and beauty to the whole structure. Ending up back in the present, the sentiment doesn't get cheap or facile, nor, luckily, sentimental.And there is Addie Ross, the fourth woman, heard and never seen, a paradigm of the unattainable, the "perfect" woman that three men are still vaguely in love with even though married to three other women, the wives of the title. Cocky, unperturbed Addie is what every wife fears, and sometimes should fear, but then, every man should be aware that women will fear whatever "other" woman is on hand, whether or not she really fits that role (such is jealousy). Addie becomes a kind of virtual femme fatale, and we see the back of her picture frame and almost see the back of her, once, on a patio (I wonder who that actress was!). And men, then and now--I mean, really, shouldn't they should compensate? If they can.The director and screenwriter, Joseph L. Mankiewicz (who won Best Director for both roles) may have been hand-tied by the whole situation, one flashback after another (there were four originally, down from five in the book), but the three eventually assemble beautifully. By necessity, after all this buildup, the final, key twist is bold and convincing--when one of the husbands really does leave his wife, earlier in the day, for an affair with the unseen paradigm, his appearance with his wife at the country club dance that night is meant to prove how much he loves her. And she realizes it. In a way, what the irresistible Addis Ross manages is to make all three couples appreciate what they have, leaving her out. Go Cosmo.Amazingly, two key characters went uncredited: Thelma Ritter as a house servant and Celeste Holm doing the voice. The director springboarded from Three Wives to his most legendary film, All About Eve, the next year, and gave both Ritter and Holm important roles (and earned himself another Oscar for direction). Alfred Newman did the music for both films, and notice in this one how it assumes an important supporting role, helping us read the scenes as they unfold. I'm not sure if love triumphs, or luck, or humor, but something makes everyone relatively rosy. It's a mixed-up feel-good melodrama. There is some of that post-war pressure for women to be at home, for sure, but Douglas's wife only concedes her weekends to that, and not as a submissive housewife. Douglas is more the homebody, comfy with his books. Even the apparent mismatch, between the successful, brash retailer and the much-too-young woman who clearly likes her things fancy, is made good by some kind of true love, not mere lust. I think. Don't prejudge these wives, or their husbands, and all will be well.