Proof of the matter being that you take whatever they give you when you're new at work, the badly titled HOUSEWIFE was a good story trapped in a bad movie that misused the talents of both Bette Davis and Ann Dvorak. Both women play friends vying for the same man, with the then "modern" catch that the man in question was married to Dvorak and Davis plain wanted him with the subtlety of a male ostrich trying to impress his bride-to-be. Then again, Davis was perfectly comfortable in these types of roles that made her wickedness seem just a commodity of her character, and in her limited screen time (the movie runs for a little over an hour and looks it), she manages to stir the pot and cook some nasty food. She definitely would have had a doozy of a time just floating around the story of "The Women" as yet another of these vicious vixens hoping to score a man of their own at the expense of another woman's happiness. Now, if only the story had not been part of the B-movie products turned out in those days and that the values of the time had allowed for just a shade more wickedness -- why not, even a showdown between Dvorak and Davis. The interesting thing is that despite a soap-opera plot that MGM could have produced in its sleep (and had in such stuff of the likes of WIFE VS. SECRETARY) it never feels a "woman's picture". Certainly not with the left turn the story takes in having Dvorak's son get struck by a car (although he recovers nicely the next time he's seen so maybe it wasn't that bad). Good bare-bones concept of a story, short, but ultimately just another Warner's B-picture.
