MovieChat Forums > Doctors' Wives (1971) Discussion > Pure Trash -- With an Embarrassing Osca...

Pure Trash -- With an Embarrassing Oscar Pedigree

posted 2 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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SPOILERS
I'm old enough to remember when Doctors Wives came out in 1971. It was one of a small clutch of films made to "make the most of the new R rating" by adapting trashy paperbacks to the big screen. Jacqueline Susann had led the way in the 60s with "Valley of the Dolls," and now with the R rating in place, movies could go even further.

But not THAT far. Having watched Doctors Wives a few days ago, I'm reminded that American studios often didn't know what to DO with the R rating. Doctors Wives has a lot of TALK about sex, and a couple of barely there moments of nudity, but it is really still a very square soap opera at heart. And there are no simulated sex scenes.

Dyan Cannon -- recently Oscar nommed for Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice -- beats Janet Leigh in Psycho in getting killed off early in the movie. She is in the first scene. She gets killed in the second scene. There are no flashbacks to her.

But her first scene IS a lollapalooza. She sits at a table playing cards with the other doctors wives. Their husbands are a mere table away playing their own card game, but not within earshot of their wives.

Dyan announces herself to the other wives pretty much as the sexpot slut of the women and announces that she will have sex with all their husbands to "test out their sexual problems and report them to the wives." She then announces that she has already had sex with "50% of the men." Why its "A Letter to Three Wives"(Oscar pedigree point Number One) mixed with a porn movie. With no porn.

The wives don't have to worry because Dyan gets killed in the next scene. (Her corpse is played by a nude body double atop a man whose face we can't see -- minimal 1971 R-rated nudity.) No mystery here -- turns out her husband understandably shot her atop ANOTHER doctor. THAT doctor is played by a low wattage, creepy looking TV actor named John Colicos. The doctor shot with Dyan (wounded, not killed) is played by low wattage actor George Gaynes, whose later claim to fame was playing a TV SOAP OPERA DOCTOR in Tootsie. It would seem this role was his audition, 11 years earlier.

The other "doctor husbands" are an interesting batch for 1971, two of whom were about to break big, the other..."dependable."

Gene Hackman is one of the doctors. Imagine, the awful Doctors Wives came out in 1971 -- the same year that Hackman won the Best Actor Oscar for The French Connection! Its rare that an actor makes his worst movie and his best movie in the same year(well, one of them, each), but Hackman in the beginning took any role he could get. ALSO in 1971, Hackman was in the truly wretched rape-and-murder fillled The Hunting Party. Its amazing that the Academy didn't hold those against him.

Hackman, like Michael Caine, came from poverty and saw movies as jobs. If they could land some Oscar bait along the way, great, but both men took ANYTHING, at least in the beginning. When he did Doctors Wives, Hackman already had Oscar nominations for Bonnie and Clyde and I Never Sang for My Father...but , he simply used them to market himself for schlock, sometimes. Like Michael Caine sometimes did. Like Doctors Wives.

One of the other doctors was a rising character man, nothing more , nothing less -- but in 1971 HIS ship came in, and it wasn't Doctors Wives. It was All in the Family. Yep, Carroll O'Connor is one of the doctors here, given -- as a wife -- a trivia question wife in the name of Cara Williams. Cara Williams had spent the 60's as a TV sitcom wife who was meant to be "the next Lucille Ball" -- but it didn't pan out, and here she plays the long-suffering O'Connor's embarrasing public alcoholic of a wife.

So in 1971, the same year they made Doctors Wives, Gene Hackman won the Best Actor Oscar for The French Connection and Carroll O'Connor made TV history as Arhcie Bunker.

Which leaves the final doctor -- Richard Crenna. His was a fascinating career. Starting on TV in the fifties as an adenoidal nerd of a teenager on "Our Miss Brooks," the good looking "man next door" Crenna next took a father role on The Real McCoys, detoured into "serious TV drama" with Slattery's People(about a State Senator) and...for a few years...got to be a movie star.

It didn't last long, but he got a second lead to Steve McQueen in Robert Wise's epic The Sand Pebbles(1966) and got probably his most famous role as a sympathetic crook TRYING to menace blind Audrey Hepburn in the very famous screamer Wait Until Dark. (I've always figured that Crenna got those leads because McQueen and Hepburn were too expensive to cast bigger stars in Crenna's roles.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

In 1969, Gene Hackman and Richard Crenna had played astronaunts in danger in "Marooned," and if you take a look, both "Marooned" and "Doctors Wives" were Columbia movies produced by the same guy --Mike Frankovich, rather a corporate guy(I think he was an ex college football player) who mainly produced middlebrow fare. Frankovich later produced a truly great movie - John Wayne's final film, The Shootist(1976.)

But in 1969 and 1971, Mike Frankovich was producing middlng movies like Marooned and AWFUL movies like Doctors Wives and -- methinks that Gene Hackman and Richard Crenna were trapped in contract roles in both films.

To the extent there is star power in "Doctors Wives," it is on the male doctors' side. Gene Hackman(here with a mustache) DID have his middle-aged charisma(and that crisp voice); Richard Crenna WAS handsome(in a pockmarked, nicely rugged way) and Carroll O'Connor(even NOT as Archie Bunker) had a commanding presence, an Irishman's look, a way with lines.

After Dyan Cannon is offed, we're left with actresses such as the afore-mentioned Cara Williams, Marian McCargo, and a couple of surprises: "prestige" British actress Rachel Roberts as Hackman's wife and Janice Rule , as Crenna's wife.

Janice Rule is the winner here. She had a different, truly sexy and sultry way about her and the movie basically gives her the most handsome doctor husband (Crenna.) They also show her to "turn nympho" when taking the drugs to which she is addicted. And -- for timely content -- they show her having to deal with the fact that hubby Crenna is having an affair with his African-American nurse(the attractive Diana Sands.)

"Doctors Wives" is mainly a soap opera, but it goes crazy places -- real footage of open heart surgery( to remove a BULLET from the heart!) and a brain operation to save Sand's little boy. The killer doctor hatches a plan to escape the the cops while performing that surgery. Sex is rampantly talked about, but never shown.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The movie is bad. The dialogue is often terrible. And this brings us to the most dubious "Oscar connection" of them all.

The screenplay -- "Adapted from the bestseller by Frank G. Slaughter" is by one Daniel Taradash. Taradash in 1954 -- less that 20 years before Doctors Wives, won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for a true classic: "From Here to Eternity."

But..weirder still...in 1971..the year that Doctors Wives came out...Daniel Taradash was the PRESIDENT OF THE MOTION PICTURE ACADEMY...and at the close of the ceremony where Gene Hackman won his Best Actor Oscar for The French Connection...Taradash led a bunch of stars in welcoming Charlie Chaplin to the stage after his long exile in Europe.

So...hey...the President of the Motion Picture Academy in 1971 was the man who wrote..."Doctor Wives"?

And Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar. Nor did any of the great screenplays for his greatest films.

I suppose there is this:

"From Here to Eternity" was similar to "Doctors Wives" in its 1953 year of release. A soap opera of sorts, with some Hayes Code marital cheating and some tangled romances and some violence on the side.

And not ALL of the lines in Doctors Wives are terrible. I recall a number of the lines being pretty intelligent, really -- Taradash did his best with the material.

The only exchange I remember is between Crenna's doctor and a cop investigating Cannon's murder:

Cop: And here I thought you doctors were different, something special. A breed apart from the rest of us.
Crenna: No...we're not. (Pause) We're like lawyers.

I thought that was witty. I don't know why.

Doctors Wives. Terrible movie with a great Oscar pedigree.

PS. The uniquely gorgeous Janice Rule was married, for a time, to actor Ben Gazzara. Lucky man!

[–] ccr1633 (1523) 2 years ago

On a mainly unrelated note, one of my very favorite dark comedies with a hospital theme also released in 1971 is "The Hospital" starring George C. Scott. I know Mr. Ecarle will know this film, but I mention it because people who follow his threads most probably enjoy high quality fare, and in my experience this is mostly a forgotten film. Were it not penned by Paddy Chayefsky it'd probably be even more obscure. It's wickedly cynical with lots of familiar faces from other 70s classics. George C. Scott is at the top of his game. I don't think he's done better work. Check it out if you have a taste for films like "Network" and "Dr. Strangelove" (what film fan doesn't?).

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

On a mainly unrelated note,

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Not really UNrelated -- 2 movies about hospitals and doctors(and sex), both from 1971.

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one of my very favorite dark comedies with a hospital theme also released in 1971 is "The Hospital" starring George C. Scott.

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From the ridiculous(Doctors Wives) to the sublime --"The Hospital." I think the connection is well made. Doctors Wives was intended as fairly salacious, lowbrow entertainment -- but "The Hospital" had a great script(Oscar winning, by Paddy Chayefsky -- this was his script right BEFORE Network -- five years later!), a great lead performance(George C. Scott, one year after refusing his Patton Oscar and just as great), and great if depressing issues.

---I know Mr. Ecarle will know this film, but I mention it because people who follow his threads most probably enjoy high quality fare, and in my experience this is mostly a forgotten film.

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I hope your comments direct some folks to this great movie.

You know, Paddy Chayefsky ended up with only a small number of movies being made from his screenplays. "Marty" went first and won Picture, Screenplay, Actor(Ernest Borgnine) and is so DIFFERENT from The Hospital and Network its hard to believe all were written by the same man. "The Americanization of Emily" was Paddy's too. Its star , James Garner, considered it the best of HIS movies, and the best movie ever made, period.

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Were it not penned by Paddy Chayefsky it'd probably be even more obscure.

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Well, its not quite as "flashy" as Network, and it really only has George C. Scott as a star -- Network has four of them. On the other hand, Diana Rigg(from the British TV spy show, The Avengers) is plenty sexy -- just the cure for Dr. Scott's impotency(which the movie is about in various ways -- ALL impotency.)

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It's wickedly cynical with lots of familiar faces from other 70s classics. George C. Scott is at the top of his game. I don't think he's done better work.

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Agreed.

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Check it out if you have a taste for films like "Network" and "Dr. Strangelove" (what film fan doesn't?).

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Yes! I would add that, as a young person, I saw George C. Scott in The Hospital in 1971, and George C. Scott in The New Centurions in 1972...and both movies were as DEPRESSING as hell(one was about hospitals; one was about the police) and rather darkened my worldview from a young age. Both movies see America as "down for the count" but -- here we are 50 plus years later, still thinking the same thing but...still here.

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For what it is worth, here is my post about one scene in The Hospital, from its page:

https://moviechat.org/tt0067217/The-Hospital/5e766c8c4822d6790ffffa78/The-Early-Scene-Where-Scott-Screams-at-Nancy-Marchand

[–] agentalbert (3090) 2 years ago

Interesting comments to read. Just watched this a few nights ago. Thought it sounded good, a few minutes into it I was expecting a fun movie. But I think you're spot on regarding the studio not knowing what to do with the R rating, so while you get a movie with a lot of sex talk, there is almost no actual eye candy. It was pretty disappointing.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Just watched this a few nights ago.

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Though there are a lot of classics and famous hit movies out there to view on streaming, it is kind of fun when they go deep in the studio vaults and dig out something like "Doctors Wives," which is NOT a good movie, but IS an artifact of its times. Plus, it has a problem that has plagued good actors forever: good movie actors sometimes(especially at the start of their careers) had to act in real junk. Here: Gene Hackman, Carroll O'Connor, Richard Crenna, Dyan Cannon, Janice Rule.

----Thought it sounded good, a few minutes into it I was expecting a fun movie. But I think you're spot on regarding the studio not knowing what to do with the R rating, so while you get a movie with a lot of sex talk, there is almost no actual eye candy. It was pretty disappointing.

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I lived through the period when movies suddenly got R and X ratings, but I was pretty young then and generally not allowed to see such films -- so I IMAGINED them almost as porn type movies. But "Doctors Wives" proves that major studios really weren't going to film such scenes. I expect all the frank sex talk was "good enough to make the R rating worthwhile" -- once upon a time, characters couldn't even TALK about sex.

[–] agentalbert (3090) 2 years ago

Dyan Cannon's character seemed fun, she sure was in that opening scene. I think it's lame she used a body double for that nude scene from behind.

I did like Janice Rule's scene trying to seduce her husband Richard Crenna. I also would have liked to see a nice romp with Crenna and his nurse lover played by Diana Sands.

But these kinds of tame US movies are partly why I watch so much Italian fare.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Dyan Cannon's character seemed fun, she sure was in that opening scene.

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I think Dyan Cannon was on some sort of contrac with Columbia Pictures at the time so I suppose she went ahead and did that single scene for them. She certainly plays an over the top, total slut (a harsh world but fits, here.)

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I think it's lame she used a body double for that nude scene from behind.

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Well, back in the day when the R and X rating arrived, actresses had the choice: do the scene nude or ask for a body double. I do believe there is a book/webpage called "Mr. Skin" that details which actresses over the past 50 years DID do their own nude scenes; fans "in the know" know which ones DID (Sharon Stone) and which ones didn't (Raquel Welch). Also, sometimes actresses were furious to learn that nude body doubles were used without their permission - they didn't want viewers thinking that was them.

Male nudity was less of a big deal, as long as it was "buttocks focussed." Like Charlton Heston in the first Planet of the Apes. I think Michael Douglas used a body double somewhere in "Basic Instinct." A few male actors went "full frontal," the outer boundary of mainstream movie nudity.

We now live in an age where the powers that be really don't WANT actors and actresses in movies stripping down for our edification. Its become a political thing -- our American movies are a lot less sexy, but nobody wants to FORCE these folks to undress. And there's always porn and Only Fans.

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I did like Janice Rule's scene trying to seduce her husband Richard Crenna.

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Those drugs she craved had their effect...sexy actress, nice oppotunity for Crenna to be sexier than usual...

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I also would have liked to see a nice romp with Crenna and his nurse lover played by Diana Sands.

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Who wouldn't?

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

But these kinds of tame US movies are partly why I watch so much Italian fare.

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Foreign films started out sexier than American films and they are going back to being sexier than American films.

Another thought: If one leaves porn off the table, movies that were really ABOUT sex make a statement about how important sex can(should?) be in adult lives. In its opening scene with Dyan Cannon taunting the other wives while their husbands sit nearby playing cards, the movie itself makes the statement: this is a movie ABOUT how men and women make sex a key part of their relationships. We are practically FORCED, in this opening scene, to consider Carroll O'Connor(!) and Gene Hackman(!) as SEXUAL BEINGS. With their wives considered that way, too. There is also this: doctors are generally rich and generally make life and death decisions and perform delicate surgeries and hence are ENTITLED to all sorts of sex.

Still, serious movies about sex are few and far between. Doctors Wives is not one of them. On first thought these movies strike me as "about" sex: Midnight Cowboy, Klute, Carnal Knowledge, Last Tango in Paris, Blue Velvet, Henry and June, Basic Instinct, Boogie Nights....

[–] agentalbert (3090) 2 years ago

Yes, agree. US movies are so chaste these days.

Thanks for posting your comments on this board for the movie. There wouldn't have been much here otherwise.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Thanks for reading.

The modern hits and the Marvel movies get hundreds of posts. Old classics do OK.

But its those "nothing movies that fell through the cracks" that are sometimes fun for a re-visit. Give 'em a post or two! Give 'em a thread!

Doctors Wives was "smutty"(ha) but you gotta admit, the actors were good ones and the Oscar credentials were there for some of the cast and crew.

[–] heyteegs (1207) a year ago

This is a long missive. There are some flashbacks to Dyan at the end - they are stills. One or two closeups of her face lying dead on the bed. Crenna was also in a episode of I Love Lucy as a nerdy teen. 'Keep jiggling, Peggy.' You're right; it is a piece of trash. I mean Dyan's first line "I'm horny." You know, it's the 1970s!