Nitrate Treasures: A Letter to Three Wives

Nitrate Print!

Marriage Wows (1949)

All the animals are getting ready for the biggest wedding the jungle has ever seen in this Famous Studios “Screen Song” featuring a bouncing ball sing-along version of "For Me and My Gal."

35mm nitrate, color, 7 min. Director: Izzy Sparber.

Nitrate print!

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

Three leading lady socialites of a (deceptively) sleepy suburb are shaken out of their domestic daydreams when a letter from a fourth—conveniently delivered just as they board a ferry for a school picnic—reveals she’s about to run away with one of their husbands. In the trio’s recollective struggle to work out whose husband it is, you can hear Mankiewicz sharpening his gossipy knives in this precursor to All About Eve (1950) that’s no less cunning, catty and whip-smart for its white picket fence locale.

35mm nitrate, b/w, 103 min. Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Screenwriter: Vera Caspary, Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Cast: Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Kirk Douglas.