Woman Against Woman (DVD)

"You've changed my mind for me so often it's a miracle I've got one left." Attorney Stephen Holland (Herbert Marshall) has had it with manipulative, disdainful wife Cynthia (Mary Astor) arranging his life like a windup toy -- to the point that he storms out of his unhappy home and straight to divorce court. After the blistering break, he meets and marries Maris Kent (Virginia Bruce), whose love for him is as self-sacrificing as his ex-spouse's was smothering. But the newlyweds, unwisely moving back to Stephen's cliquish hometown, can't foresee the subtly twisted lengths to which a forsaken ex will go to sabotage the new couple's happiness. Three poised Hollywood stars provide sleekly clad sheen and snap to this compact smart-set heartache yarn from writer/producer Edward Chodorov (Kind Lady, Yellow Jack) and first-time director Robert B. Sinclair (who staged the original Broadway productions of Dodsworth, Pride and Prejudice and The Women). When these creative types intersect on Woman Against Woman, they prove love's a bitch, wittily and glamorously.