How Hollywood's greatest actresses proved women didn't need leading men to rule the box office in one of cinema's most daring films. Nineteen thirty-nine is generally regarded as the greatest year in cinema history, producing such outstanding films as Gone With the Wind , The Wizard of Oz , Goodbye, Mister Chips , Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Wuthering Heights , Stage Coach , and Ninotchka. No less a critically acclaimed or financially successful movie release that year was The Women , a film now regarded as one of the major films of what was a stellar year in Hollywood film production. But what made The Women unique is that not a single male actor appears in it, not even as a voice off-screen. Its all-female cast included some of the finest actresses of their era--Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, and Butterfly McQueen--with costumes and sets designed by MGM's master stylists, Adrian and Cedric Gibbons. Based on the hit Broadway play by Clare Boothe Luce, the film adaptation went through several screenwriters--including a failing F. Scott Fitzgerald--before a final script was developed by Jane Murfin and Anita Loos.

In Jungle Red! , Illeana Douglas explains how the film came together, the infighting among the cast both on and off camera, and how three gay men--director George Cukor, Adrian, and set designer Cedric Gibbons--combined to produce a stylish film that exposes the many faces of womanhood.