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A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930-1960
The "women's" films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s--including Now Voyager, Gilda, and Rebecca--receive a lively, incisive look that examines the stars, the story lines, and the contradictory messages of these popular movies.
528 pages, Hardcover
First published August 31, 1993
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About the author
Jeanine Basinger
18books123followersJeanine Basinger holds a BS and MS from South Dakota State University. She is a film historian, professor of Film Studies at Wesleyan University and curator and founder of The Cinema Archives at Wesleyan University. In addition, she is a trustee emeritus of the American Film Institute, a member of the Steering Committee of the National Center for Film and Video Preservation, and one of the Board of Advisors for the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers.
She has appeared in several movie-related documentaries and completed audio commentaries on about a dozen classic films.
She has appeared in several movie-related documentaries and completed audio commentaries on about a dozen classic films.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
April 20, 2024
Basinger is simply brilliant in this book, which updates feminist theory and applies it to classic American films. While I love , it does tend toward a victimized view of women, while Basinger's book is more sophisticated – and credits women moviegoers of the time as more sophisticated as well.
September 28, 2012
While I did enjoy this book on the whole, it could have been much more tightly edited. It was a 500 page book that could have been 250 pages. At times I felt like I was reading a textbook for class. A cool class but nevertheless a class. I felt like the author was beating the reader over the head with examples. So many examples! I understand. You do a lot of research and want to include it all because it's just all so interesting to you. After a while, however, my eyes started to glaze over at yet another 4-5 page summary of a movie. Yet the author did not include a list at the end of the book of all the movies she discussed. I would have appreciated that. She had an appendix & a bibliography but no cohesive list of all the movies discussed. I had to keep a running list of all the movies I want to see. It would have been convenient if there had been a master list that I could have checked off names of movies worth seeing. Oh well. I'm also not sure how many of the movies I'll be able to find on DVD. I'm gonna try, though!
I enjoyed the author's casual writing style. She could be very funny discussing scenes of movies. It made me wish I could watch some of them with her. She seems like a real hoot.
I liked how she divided the book into (loooong) chapters on Men, Marriage & Motherhood(the big three) as well as chapters on the actresses most identified with women's films, the settings of the movies, and the fashion. Oh, and a chapter on the preponderance of twins in these movies. Good twin! Evil twin! Ah, the duality of women!
This is an amazingly thorough and deep book about women's films of the 3o's - 60's. As someone who adores that period in film, this book held my interest. It's certainly not for the casual fan. I enjoyed reading about some of my favorite movies (especially pre-code films like Babyface and Female) and also learning about new ones that sound great. I was surprised with myself that I had seen so many of the movies mentioned. I guess it adds up over time.I would have given it 4 stars if it hadn't been so longwinded at times.
I enjoyed the author's casual writing style. She could be very funny discussing scenes of movies. It made me wish I could watch some of them with her. She seems like a real hoot.
I liked how she divided the book into (loooong) chapters on Men, Marriage & Motherhood(the big three) as well as chapters on the actresses most identified with women's films, the settings of the movies, and the fashion. Oh, and a chapter on the preponderance of twins in these movies. Good twin! Evil twin! Ah, the duality of women!
This is an amazingly thorough and deep book about women's films of the 3o's - 60's. As someone who adores that period in film, this book held my interest. It's certainly not for the casual fan. I enjoyed reading about some of my favorite movies (especially pre-code films like Babyface and Female) and also learning about new ones that sound great. I was surprised with myself that I had seen so many of the movies mentioned. I guess it adds up over time.I would have given it 4 stars if it hadn't been so longwinded at times.
July 6, 2015
Hugely enjoyable read, with the caveat that it probably helps to be familiar with the performers that Basinger discusses. The films are more widely available now than when she wrote, thanks to TCM. If you haven't seen them (I hadn't seen most of the pre-Code stuff), then you can rely upon Basinger's immensely erudite and witty discussions. She has a sharp eye for the absurd (the book is worth reading for the chapter on Kay Francis' career alone), but also razor-sharp insights into the implications of these movies for American female self-identity during the mid-20th century and beyond. She excels in this book at taking the trees and turning them into forests.
October 14, 2008
A big brick of a book. For some 500 rather graceless pages Basinger stomps from film synopsis to film synopsis with a smattering of analysis (and a lot of bullet-point lists) scattered between, presenting the often contradictory ways studio-era Hollywood films presented women and "women's problems." Taking full advantage of her far-reaching knowledge of films, Basinger presents a lot of compelling evidence and examples for her loosely sketched themes but unfortunately fails to do much with it. Still, it often makes for interesting reading, and I managed to soldier through right to the end, and I suppose that counts for something.
"It is obvious that seeds off unrest, even rebellion, were planted in some female minds by th evidence they saw on-screen, despite the conventional endings that turn a story into a cautionary tale."
"It is obvious that seeds off unrest, even rebellion, were planted in some female minds by th evidence they saw on-screen, despite the conventional endings that turn a story into a cautionary tale."
July 4, 2019
My all-time favorite book on women in cinema.
August 26, 2008
This is an enormously long book, packed with details of an overwhelming array of 1930s, 40s and 50s films of the genre described as "women's emotion pictures". Jeanine Basinger has seen literally hundreds, and draws out a number of themes and plot components, from fashion and glamour to marriage and motherhood.
She argues convincingly that the films at once uphold and challenge society's norms. If most of a film shows a woman struggling to be independent and build a career, then this can't all be cancelled out by a soft-focus ending where she falls into a man's arms.
Long as the book is, at times I wanted more - for instance, more details about the directors who made these movies and the impact of the Hays Code. But I found it all very readable, witty and interesting, and am now keen to see even more of the movies from this period starring actresses like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
She argues convincingly that the films at once uphold and challenge society's norms. If most of a film shows a woman struggling to be independent and build a career, then this can't all be cancelled out by a soft-focus ending where she falls into a man's arms.
Long as the book is, at times I wanted more - for instance, more details about the directors who made these movies and the impact of the Hays Code. But I found it all very readable, witty and interesting, and am now keen to see even more of the movies from this period starring actresses like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
May 15, 2020
This is enlightening, provocative, and an absolute blast to read. Still, I have to quibble at least a little. Sometimes I wondered if the theory hadn’t picked the movies rather than being formed by them. There are also too many errors, whether because of misremembered movies or because Basinger couldn’t resist a making a crack even if it were contrary to what actually happened. But as I say, quibbles. The essence is pure gold, not tinsel.
July 11, 2019
All of Jeanine Basinger's books are perfect reference books--thick, packed with scads of information and details, photos, sources, information with a smattering of personal preferences and asides--that take a detailed look on various aspects of Classic Cinema, with a special focus on women. Her I still think is her tour de force (though I love too) and she's amazing at breaking down and analyzing genre, which she does here. [I read this concurrently with another non-fiction book and the differences between the two historians is telling. One was almost pop-history, light on facts, heavy on "retellings" and "could have happened," overly reliant on a few sources with no photos, and this one, the exact opposite, an obvious labor of a lifetime, that can be referred reliably, backed up with scads of info to the nth degree and almost exhaustively researched. One is a book to pass the time on a plane or something, the other something to keep on your shelves always.]
While this does go all the way to 1960 though, there are not many post WW2 films mentioned, other than a smattering, but then the genre itself pretty much died after the war too, though its decline isn't specifically covered in detail, which is probably due to a number of factors--the end of the studio system, television, the post war atmosphere which wasn't the most sympathetic towards women's films all played a part, the loss of an international audience, etc. The list at the end of the top 10 box stars is telling, with women making up half the list for the most of the 30s, until dwindling down till it hits 1957 when no women make the list.
Pre-code and 1940s is where this book primarily and for obvious reasons concentrates--and while I have a bunch of films I now need to see, the obvious ones are thoroughly covered (i.e., Now, Voyager; Mildred Pierce; Stella Dallas), and it does bring a spotlight back to many overlooked and interesting films too (Female; Hard, Fast, and Beautiful; Mary Stevens, M.D.). Kay Francis does make the cover of this after all (and I have a weak spot for Kay Francis films so was happy they get attention in this book), and I really liked how it did a deep dive into the various aspects of "women's film" which as she points out with Now, Voyager, a film that should be at least as regarded as Citizen Kane by quoting the Times critic:
After all, Potemkin (which I admire but don't really like) is the very stuff of cinema--but Now, Voyager (which I love but am afraid to admire) is only a movie? As a result the typical ten best list wound up looking like screening selections for an undergraduate course in Seminal Cinema 101. And the Now, Voyagers of the film world were relegated to a mind-closet containing all of the critic's secret sins
The above is mentioned in a footnote and the fact that a male critic in the mid 70s was "afraid" of admitting he thought a Bette Davis movie deserved to be recognized as one of the greats got me thinking how the top 10 lists are slanted towards "men films" and male only protagonist ones, so I looked at a variety of different "TOP FILMS OF ALL TIME" and the only female lead that consistently pops up is Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz (which doesn't really fall under the women's genre). Anyways, made me reflect just on how we measure "greatness" or what are "films" vs. "movies." which seems to devalue and ignore women completely, which as Basinger points out time and time again is a facet of the women's genre itself, though subverted. (I kept hoping during the portion on The Great Lie, how much of the script was rewritten by Davis and Astor who found it totally ridiculous and how perhaps the actresses' interpretation/reworking on the script made that movie the total weird oddity it is rebelling against its ridiculous plot line, but that wasn't really brought up either--so it would be neat to see how much of the undercurrent of nuance in these women's films are because of actresses direct interference of the inanity they had to play.)
She also raises a key point in this book on how films during the Golden Age tried to include more than one demographic, so "western" films will have aspects like Destry Rides Again or a Tale of Two Cities to include plot lines or scenes that would appeal to women in the audience too, so all genres bled into each other, which isn't something I really considered before.
Anyway, engrossing book even with its heft and worthy of a spot on any old movie lover's shelf.
While this does go all the way to 1960 though, there are not many post WW2 films mentioned, other than a smattering, but then the genre itself pretty much died after the war too, though its decline isn't specifically covered in detail, which is probably due to a number of factors--the end of the studio system, television, the post war atmosphere which wasn't the most sympathetic towards women's films all played a part, the loss of an international audience, etc. The list at the end of the top 10 box stars is telling, with women making up half the list for the most of the 30s, until dwindling down till it hits 1957 when no women make the list.
Pre-code and 1940s is where this book primarily and for obvious reasons concentrates--and while I have a bunch of films I now need to see, the obvious ones are thoroughly covered (i.e., Now, Voyager; Mildred Pierce; Stella Dallas), and it does bring a spotlight back to many overlooked and interesting films too (Female; Hard, Fast, and Beautiful; Mary Stevens, M.D.). Kay Francis does make the cover of this after all (and I have a weak spot for Kay Francis films so was happy they get attention in this book), and I really liked how it did a deep dive into the various aspects of "women's film" which as she points out with Now, Voyager, a film that should be at least as regarded as Citizen Kane by quoting the Times critic:
After all, Potemkin (which I admire but don't really like) is the very stuff of cinema--but Now, Voyager (which I love but am afraid to admire) is only a movie? As a result the typical ten best list wound up looking like screening selections for an undergraduate course in Seminal Cinema 101. And the Now, Voyagers of the film world were relegated to a mind-closet containing all of the critic's secret sins
The above is mentioned in a footnote and the fact that a male critic in the mid 70s was "afraid" of admitting he thought a Bette Davis movie deserved to be recognized as one of the greats got me thinking how the top 10 lists are slanted towards "men films" and male only protagonist ones, so I looked at a variety of different "TOP FILMS OF ALL TIME" and the only female lead that consistently pops up is Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz (which doesn't really fall under the women's genre). Anyways, made me reflect just on how we measure "greatness" or what are "films" vs. "movies." which seems to devalue and ignore women completely, which as Basinger points out time and time again is a facet of the women's genre itself, though subverted. (I kept hoping during the portion on The Great Lie, how much of the script was rewritten by Davis and Astor who found it totally ridiculous and how perhaps the actresses' interpretation/reworking on the script made that movie the total weird oddity it is rebelling against its ridiculous plot line, but that wasn't really brought up either--so it would be neat to see how much of the undercurrent of nuance in these women's films are because of actresses direct interference of the inanity they had to play.)
She also raises a key point in this book on how films during the Golden Age tried to include more than one demographic, so "western" films will have aspects like Destry Rides Again or a Tale of Two Cities to include plot lines or scenes that would appeal to women in the audience too, so all genres bled into each other, which isn't something I really considered before.
Anyway, engrossing book even with its heft and worthy of a spot on any old movie lover's shelf.
November 23, 2024
4.5
Everything you always wanted to know about the "women's picture ". I've gotten some good ideas for viewing that should last me well into next year.
Everything you always wanted to know about the "women's picture ". I've gotten some good ideas for viewing that should last me well into next year.
December 17, 2012
Quite a heavy book but it was a sort of interesting read in the type of movies there were betwenn the 30s and 60s. However, I can't actually see that there were women in the audience that would watch movies and go home and either reaffirm the way they lived or altered it in some way because a movie suggested it. My grandmother who was alive in this period watched movies to escape her day to day life and to enjoy the story (stories) not because it personally spoke to her or gave her any messages about how she was as a woman or was seen to be. In fact because of how most of the movies did make women out to be in them I can only say that only two movies that scraped under the wire of a negative view of women in society. At Sword's Point and Frenchman's Creek. Of course not every film of those decades was discussed so that the movies that weren't reviewed may not be so negative of women's lives. All though most of the movies portrayals were negative for women viewers there were some important social messages, albiet it would be briefly as movies don't generally run too much over and hour. I think the title may have been more accurate to be How Hollywood Saw Women, even though quite a few times there were women directors, they didn't get much of a mention in this book.
November 26, 2016
A sophisticated and thorough look at women's films in Old Hollywood, what messages they conveyed, and what the viewers got out of watching them. The author certainly knows her stuff, and her detail-oriented approach encourages more careful viewing of films that, at first glance, seem empty-headed at best or insulting to women at worst. The book also offers up suggestions for readers looking for interesting old movies to watch, making their content more meaningful and intriguing. While it might be argued that the book is a bit pedantic in its comprehensiveness, the depth of the examinations into the films discussed is both fascinating and--if you like the topic enough--absorbing.
February 18, 2011
Basinger is a very appealing writer. I laughed out loud every few pages while reading this book. She has consistently interesting things to say about the movies she discusses. She acknowledges that many of these movies have very silly plots and that some are downright bad, but looks below the surface to see why these films work as they do and what they said to their viewers, especially female viewers. She's great on subtext and ambiguity, which a lot of these films have in spades.
November 10, 2016
Basinger examines the woman's film, a popular genre of the 1930s to 1950s easily dismissed by critics and film historians. She lucidly investigates the duality of these films, which showed women how their life could be different, more independent, while they reinforced traditional norms and expectations at the same time. She dedicates one of her detailed analyses to the (in my opinion) woman's film to end all woman's films: Now, Voyager!
August 9, 2014
Excellent book on the way women have been portrayed in the movies. Some quite interesting footnotes to
movies that were really popular and why they ended up they way they did. It is a long read almost 600 pages but if you love the movies and like reading the background to their making especially those in the
early years before the woman's movement this is the book for you.
movies that were really popular and why they ended up they way they did. It is a long read almost 600 pages but if you love the movies and like reading the background to their making especially those in the
early years before the woman's movement this is the book for you.
February 5, 2013
the natural, unself-conscious basinger genuinely loves these movies (& knows them better than anybody). but basinger's bolshie feminism is always supervening, making heavy weather of the lightest entertainments. movies are showbiz, not 'praxis'.
April 30, 2013
Excellent source for understanding the images of women presented on screen, particularly during the postwar era. A vital thesis resource for me that turned out to be not only informative but enjoyable.
August 23, 2008
As an unashamed lover of the women's picture genre, Basinger's book was a compulsive read. Simply brilliant!
August 23, 2008
Fascinating and entertaining description of women’s pictures, included themes and stars. One of the very best
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May 18, 2009By the same author...I'll bet Bette looms large in this one!
January 11, 2013
Comprehensive book of women's role in Hollywood during its Golden Age. I can't help it, I love this book.
March 28, 2019
Quite interesting though heavy going book about 'women's' films - films with a female central.character that focus on the woman's life and problems. The author seema fixated on the idea that women werebeong 'taught' things by the films they saw - I am dubious about this myself. I have never felt that a film was 'teaching' me anything, and I w onder if women in the past were really as naive as she thinks. I mean, does anyone really imagine that 'Annie Get Your Gun' is a truthful and accurate account of Annie Oakley's life and career? Her argument, that !ovies tried to diacourage women from having careers - causes her to overlook films im which women are seen having both succesful.careers and sans cceaful marriages -
adam's Rib for example, or The Farmer's Daughter. And sometimes she simply states the obvipus "The truth is that becoming a movie star was not easy. ". Oh really? I would nevet have guessed that.
And rather oddly, having criticised Hoywood for dweling too !uch on women's looks and clothes, she them spends several pages rhapsodising over how beautiful amd stylish Kay Francis was, while adding, rather unfairly I feel, that she c ould not act. . Altogether an odd book.
adam's Rib for example, or The Farmer's Daughter. And sometimes she simply states the obvipus "The truth is that becoming a movie star was not easy. ". Oh really? I would nevet have guessed that.
And rather oddly, having criticised Hoywood for dweling too !uch on women's looks and clothes, she them spends several pages rhapsodising over how beautiful amd stylish Kay Francis was, while adding, rather unfairly I feel, that she c ould not act. . Altogether an odd book.
June 8, 2020
Basinger knocks this one out of the park. Her thesis: Hollywood movies of the Golden Age not only dictated female conformity, but more importantly, did the exact opposite: they depicted women breaking all the rules, hence making audience members’ dreams reality. This is why women’s films were so popular among women. Before the perfunctory “happy ending” moral-of-the-story of marriage and children, these films showed women doing everything—and everyone—else.
April 6, 2025
I am a film nerd, especially of the movies of the so-called "Golden Age" of Hollywood. I am particularly interested in how popular entertainment changes society and vice versa. This book is right up my alley. Jeanine Basinger is one of my favorite film historians and I appreciate this deep dive into the "women's films" of the '30's to 60's. It's serious scholarship, not light reading, so I would not recommend it to the average movie fan, but it's a gold mine for those with tastes like mine.
October 22, 2020
It took me an unusually long time to read this, but it really is superb; great analysis and actual laugh-out-loud moments of wit. And you'll find yourself wanting to watch nearly every film Basinger describes. One peculiarity, in a book about film, is that because of her strong focus on the stories told about women and the plot variations used, she tends not to mention the directors.
January 24, 2023
This did not need to have as many EXCRUCIATINGLY detailed plot descriptions as it did. Basinger encompasses the entire genre in all its variations, of course, but she could have spared us the tables with literal chunks of dialogue. And the main points that became clear after the first couple of chapters were repeated over and over. I'm just really tired after reading this.
May 7, 2025
definitivamente pudo ser un libro más corto, pero la información aquí recopilada no se compara con nada. ligero de leer y fácil de comprender, me llevo mucho de esta lectura sobre hollywood en su época de oro
February 6, 2024
Very readable, and generally a really fascinating overview. None of the films are analysed massively in-depth but as a broader look at the period I found it very helpful.
February 16, 2024
A thought-provoking look at Classic Hollywood films both about and for women.
April 21, 2025
Waiting for Wesleyan University to notify me of course credit for reading this book.
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April 23, 2025Made a list of all the films mentioned
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