I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

So much average

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

I've always found this movie rather overrated.First, Addie Ross herself sounds like a vain and tiresome woman, and it is impossible to imagine her, as presented, getting involved with either Jeffrey Lynn or Paul Douglas. Nor is it possible to imagine any of them leaving their law practice/tenured position/retail chain and houses and running away with Addie. Why? when she's already right there in town? (Now running away with Linda Darnell ... maybe.) The actual letter itself is merely bad manners on an epic scale, and not at all what one would expect this self-confessed paragon to be up to.The first act, with Lynn and Jeanna Crain, is very over-written: again, it is impossible to believe in Jeanne Crain being so gauche after just finishing several years in the Navy, from whence one would expect her to come out pretty brisk, and certainly self-confident, and the silly business with the silly flower on the silly dress is high-school stuff. The second act is merely preposterous, starting with the very idea of Kirk Douglas being married to Ann Sothern, continuing with Sothern doing what she does for a living while Kirk does what he does for a living, and terminating with the ludicrous concept of entertaining the sponsor, which would be smoothly handled by the network management, not left as a risk in a college town home with a mad professor running amok. Again, this act is badly over-written, and the sponsor and her bad behaviour are beyond parody. And Kirk should already know better than to play his precious Brahms 78 (?) to the sponsor.The movie only really gets going in Act 3 with Paul Douglas and Linda Darnell going at it hammer and tongs. Darnell is priceless ('it's not a drive in') as the small-town bombshell, and all the family stuff is very well done.There are other good moments in the film, such as the terrible picnic, the terrible country club, and aspects of the small town setting, but overall it's a long wait for the fun to start. Until then, credulity is strained at every turn, and the talking never ceases.

Where to begin. I'd really rather not give away too much of the story-lines in this one because it's so enjoyable experiencing each in its own right. It's safe to read this and the next paragraph if that's what you decide for yourself. Joseph L. Mankiewicz not only won the Best Director Oscar for this film, but the Best Writing, Screenplay statuette as well. The picture itself was also nominated, losing to All the King's Men (1949). Mankiewicz would win these same two Oscars the following year with the Academy Award winning Best Picture All About Eve (1950); it features an outstanding cast, just like this one.After a brief introduction to two of the wives (Jeanne Crain and Ann Sothern), during which we learn all is not perfect in suburbia (e.g. their marriages), the third (Linda Darnell) joins them at the beach where they're about to embark on a ferry to an island for their community's day-long 18th Annual picnic together. However, just as they're about to board, a messenger arrives with a letter addressed to the three of them from an unattached "high class" socialite, whom had been expected to join them and, whom also has a history with each of their husbands. After debating whether to open it or not, they decide to do so. The letter is then voice-over read to "us" by Celeste Holm, whose voice appears uncredited as the aforementioned woman, Addie Ross. In essence, it says that she has just run off with one of their husbands! They then gaze longingly at the telephone booth on the docks as their ferry boats departs for the island, with them aboard (I guess this story wouldn't work as well in the age of cell-phones).We then learn about the wives' relationships with their husbands, each other and Ms. Ross, in a series of three flashbacks, one for each couple but which also includes the others as well (except for Ms. Ross whom, though we never see her, is involved or offstage in each of them). Crain was a small town girl who met and married the town's "high class" man (Jeffrey Lynn), whom she met while they served together in the Navy (during the war?). He'd always been expected to come home and marry Ms. Ross. This is the shortest of the three segments, and it basically consists of Crain being so scared of meeting her husband's established clan of country club friends, that she gets drunk and embarrasses herself during the event.The second flashback further introduces us to Sothern and her husband (Kirk Douglas). She brings home the bacon as a writer for a radio program, the newest rage, while he's a highly educated school teacher (interesting role for Douglas, eh?). They have twin children, who are never seen such that we don't know if they're boys or girls, and a hired cook (played deliciously, as always, by the marvelous Thelma Ritter, uncredited). She's prepared the home cooked meal for a big invite evening with Sothern's boss, appropriately named Mrs. Manleigh (Florence Bates), who runs roughshod over her husband (played by another great character actor, Hobart Cavanaugh). Darnell and her husband (Paul Douglas) are also dinner guests. There are a series of unfortunate events which lead to a row between the couple after their guests have left. The dialogue in this segment is particularly sharp and poignant. Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer also appears briefly, and uncredited, as a messenger boy.The third segment details how the "other side of the tracks" Darnell hooked her "working class" successful business owner husband by playing "hard to get". Douglas's character had been previously married, and originally just wanted to "fool around" with his employee Darnell. This is probably the least interesting of the segments, you've seen it all before or since, but it does involve some noteworthy performances by Ms. Ritter (again), Connie Gilchrist as Darnell's Irish mother, and Barbara Lawrence as her baby sister.The influence of Ms. Ross "over" the husbands is felt by the wives in all three segments, though more strongly in some versus others. However, Mankiewicz's direction is much too clever to reveal the identity of the wayward husband ... and it would spoil it if I revealed any more!

Three wives and friends (Jeanne Craine, Ann Southern, Linda Darnell) get a letter from a woman they know. She said she is leaving town...and taking one of their husbands (Jeffrey Lynn, Kirk Douglas, Paul Douglas) with her. The women have no access to a phone so they all think back to why their husbands might be the one leaving.This starts off as a sharp cynical look at marriage and love and ends up being soapy and sentimental...but it still works. The script (a deserved Oscar-winner) is sharp. It's full of great one-liners and perceptive views of love and marriage. The cast is great and put over all their lines perfectly. Joseph Mankiewicz also won an Oscar as Best Director which he deserved. There are some very clever camera movements or techniques that clearly tell you what the characters are thinking without calling attention to itself. So, phony ending aside, this is a smart, beautifully written, acted and directed movie. Worth catching.

A highly watchable and occasionally intriguing movie which rises above its "Woman's Own" magazine origins by a combination of imaginative construction, sharp dialogue and fine ensemble acting. The imaginative construction of course revolves around director Mankiewicz's use of amongst other things, a starting and concluding voice-over by the never-seen epicentre of the drama, "other woman" Addie, the interweaving of three separate stories of post-war upper middle-class suburban American married life and the disruption caused by the pervading influence of afore-said "everybody (make that every man) loves" Addie leading to a genuinely mysterious ending with the viewer (well this one anyway) left scratching their head over the denouement. I think the film might have benefited however with Addie's voice-overs continuing throughout the film although we are teased throughout with just-out-of-camera scenes throughout. Along the way we get some trademark pithy and racy dialogue, typical of this director, taking shots along the way at snobbery, sex and consumerism as well of course, marital mores. Although the attack on consumerism seems a little high-brow today, as school-teacher Kirk Douglas bemoans the fall in cultural values with the unstoppable growth in popularity of cheap, Philistine radio soap operas at the expense of an appreciation of the finer arts as embodied by his love for Brahms and Shakespeare, it still resonates today as we seem submerged in a never-ending TV diet of trashy soaps, daytime TV and reality shows. The acting is very good, particularly Linda Darnell as the sassy shop-girl on the make with her much older boss and I also enjoyed the humorous interjections of Thelma Ritter as a put-upon maid. The device of introducing the flashback sequences with onomatopeic background noises was used later to comic effect in the Danny Kaye vehicle "Secret Life of Walter Mitty". Whilst you never quite escape the feeling that this is a 1940's "chick-flick", with a story-line at its heart every bit as incredible as any of the empty radio dramas so vilified by Douglas (obviously speaking for Mankiewicz), I can accept it as superior soap, a precursor of the Douglas Sirk-style concoctions of the 50's. And yes, my eyebrows did rise upwards at the infamous double-entendre kitchen dialogue scene!