The Women (1939)

  This is one of my absolute favorite old movies.  I remember being a kid, probably about 10, when my mother showed it to me on TCM.  I loved how catty and sharp it was.  That has only grown with time.

Mary Haines (Norma Shearer) has a great life on Park Avenue with a husband she loves and a precocious daughter (Virginia Weidler).  But one of her "friends", Sylvia (Rosalind Russell), overhears a juicy piece of gossip at the local nail salon that Mary's husband is stepping out on her.  With a girl from the perfume counter, no less.  Heartbroken, Mary learns that to survive in a woman's world, it takes ice water blood, nerves of steel, and claws painted jungle red.

I love this movie on its own merits but I also love the backstory.  It started life as a theater play written by Clare Boothe, based on a piece of gossip she overheard in the women's powder room backstage.  Now aren't you rethinking every idle piece of scandal you've ever rehashed in a public place?  You never know who's listening.

They tried to remake this movie in 2008, which I boycotted on general principles.  I don't know how you can do it justice just by slapping a bunch of new actresses in it but I still haven't seen it so I can't judge.  For my money, I'll stick with the original.