When I think of ensemble films, it's usually male ensemble films that come to mind. War films are heavy with male characters in films like John Sturges THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963) with Steve McQueen and a cast of American and British actors escaping a German POW camp or Richard Attenborough's A BRIDGE TOO FAR (1977) with count them 13 major male star actors (and Liv Ullmann) about the Allies Operation Market Garden. Sturges did it with a western in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960) with seven male leads as hired gunslingers and Eli Wallach as the Mexican villain. More recently there was the Steven Soderbergh ensemble heist film OCEAN'S ELEVEN with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon among others which is a remake of the original OCEAN'S ELEVEN (1960) with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr. among others. But female ensemble films? Those are harder to come by. But CrazyFilmGuy remembered STEEL MAGNOLIAS (1989) as one of the first examples of a female ensemble film with six well known actresses in lead roles. That's about all I knew about the film.
STEEL MAGNOLIAS is groundbreaking for women in film when you think of it. It was a first baby step for a studio to realize that there might be an audience (and box office potential) for a film with a predominantly female cast in lead roles. It helped that STEEL MAGNOLIAS had a built-in fan base already as the film is based on the play Steel Magnolias that premiered in 1987. The play's author Robert Harling would adapt his play for the film. All STEEL MAGNOLIAS would need would be a great female director, right? Sorry, we're still 30 years behind in that aspect. Instead, STEEL MAGNOLIAS would be directed by Herbert Ross who may have been known as a woman's director having made FUNNY LADY (1975) with Barbara Streisand and the female dance drama THE TURNING POINT (1977) with Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft. More about Ross and how actresses felt about working with him later.
Set in the fictional Louisiana parish of Chinquapin in the northwest part of the state, STEEL MAGNOLIAS begins with awkward beauty school graduate Annelle Dupuy (Daryl Hannah) applying for a job at Truvy's Beauty Spot, owned and operated by Truvy Jones (Dolly Parton). Truvy hires Annelle as her newest "glamour technician." It's an important day as local girl Shelby Eatenton (Julia Roberts) is about to marry Jackson Latcherie (Dylan McDermott). Shelby and her mother M'Lynn Eatenton (Sally Field) come to the salon to have their hair done before the wedding. They are joined at the salon by Clairee Belcher (Olympia Dukakis), the town's former first lady. While gossiping before the wedding, Shelby had a hypoglycemic episode related to her Type 1 diabetes. M'Lynn gives her some juice to recover but it's a scary moment. The last member of the group arrives at the salon to have her hair done: the independent and cantankerous Louisa "Ouiser" Boudreaux (Shirley MacLaine), good friend to Clairee and neighbor to M'Lynn. Louisa badgers the new stylist Annelle with questions about her past. Shelby invites Annelle to the wedding to escape Louisa's snooping.
The wedding goes off without a hitch as Shelby is escorted down the aisle by her father Drum Eatenton (Tom Skerritt) and marries Jackson against her mother M'Lynn's concerns that marriage could lead to children which doctors recommend Shelby avoid due to her diabetes. At the reception party, Annelle meets a local bartender Sammy DeSoto (Kevin J. O'Connor) and they begin a relationship. Shelby and Jackson leave the reception early for their honeymoon. STEEL MAGNOLIAS will follow the lives of these six women for the few years with Shelby's story at the center of the film. Some side stories include:
- Truvy's strained relationship with her sporadically employed husband Spud Jones (Sam Shepard).
- Clairee purchasing a local radio station.
- Louisa half-heartedly contemplating a relationship with a former beau Owen Jenkins (Bill McCutcheon). Louisa has already been married twice.
- Annelle's transformation from wallflower to party girl to religious convert.
Shelby returns home at Christmas with news she's pregnant. Drum makes the exciting announcement to friends and family at their Christmas party. M'Lynn's worried about Shelby's health and wishes she had considered adopting a baby instead. Shelby's determined to have the baby and wishes M'Lynn would be happy for her.
We jump ahead to the 4th of July. Shelby and Jackson are proud parents of a healthy baby boy, Jack Jr. At Truvy's salon, Shelby surprises everyone by having her long hair cut short. Shelby reveals she needs a kidney transplant. M'Lynn makes the decision to donate her kidney to her daughter. The Steel Magnolia's, Jackson, and Shelby's family wait nervously at the hospital as the transplant is completed. It's a success.
Four months later, it's nearing Halloween. Annelle and Sammy are now expecting a child. Jackson comes home from work to find Shelby collapsed on their back deck due to complications from her kidney transplant. Shelby is rushed to the hospital where family and friends gather again. SPOILER ALERT!!! It's now Easter. After some time and consultation with the doctors, Jackson, Drum, and M'Lynn make the difficult decision to have Shelby, who's in a coma, taken off life support. The Steel Magnolias attend the funeral. M'Lynn comes to terms with her daughter's choice to risk her life to bring a child into the world and be a mother. Shelby's death will strengthen the bond in the Steel Magnolias own personal relationships. Spud builds a second salon for Truvy. Louisa lets down her irascible guard and accepts trying a new relationship with Owen. Drum and M'Lynn become more connected as a couple again. And Annelle goes into labor. As the parish loses one of its daughters, a new life will take her place.
Shelby's story and the tug of war relationship between Shelby and her mother M'Lynn is central to STEEL MAGNOLIAS as it should be since Shelby is based on playwright/screenwriter Robert Harling's sister Susan who died of complications from her diabetes after giving birth to her only child. But every female character in STEEL MAGNOLIAS has relationship issues whether with men or each other. The men in Truvy's life (her husband and son) are rarely around for Truvy to have someone to talk confide in. Truvy becomes a de facto den mother to her customers/friends at the salon. Annelle has just left a man she thinks she was married to who wrecked her life. She enters into a relationship with Sammy but she's fragile and doesn't know who she really is. Clairee and Louisa are the oldest of group. They're like sisters, yanking each other's chains. Louisa is the town curmudgeon. Clairee tries to pull her out of her ornery, protective shell so she can enjoy life and people again.
The passing of Shelby will resolve all the other women's relationship issues. Her yearning to have a child of her own despite the health risks and subsequent premature death will make everyone else's problems pale in comparison. Shelby's death even shakes Truvy's husband Spud who seems to awaken from his own masculine coma and see his wife in a new light. Drum and M'Lynn who had regressed to two ships passing in their own house reconcile. Louisa decides to give a relationship another chance with Owen. The word STEEL MAGNOLIAS is never mentioned in the movie but the title suggests that the six women in the film are as delicate as a magnolia flower (the state flower of Louisiana) and as tough as steel. The title describes the female characters in STEEL MAGNOLIAS to a tee.
STEEL MAGNOLIAS offers a role reversal not seen often in films. Usually, it's actresses in films who are relegated in minor roles playing the wife or girlfriend of the key male actor with very little to do. STEEL MAGNOLIAS flips that convention. Actors Tom Skerritt (MASH), Dylan McDermott (IN THE LINE OF FIRE), Sam Shepard (BLACK HAWK DOWN), and Kevin J. O'Connor (THE MUMMY) with amazing credits throughout their careers play supporting roles with limited scenes in comparison to the six Steel Magnolia female stars. The women are the stars and the focus of the story. And the men understand their place. Give credit to writer Harling who brings life to the supporting roles of husbands and boyfriends. In Harling's play Steel Magnolias, there are no male characters on stage. It's six women talking in a beauty salon. The men are only referred to, never seen.
Although it's based on a play which usually has two or three acts, I found the pacing of the film version of STEEL MAGNOLIAS to be uneven and disjointed even with the great film editor Paul Hirsch (STAR WARS, FOOTLOOSE) at the helm. The transition to film for STEEL MAGNOLIAS opened the story up from one setting inside the beauty salon to multiple locations both interior and exterior but the movie proceeds without a good sense of time passing. Director Ross and screenwriter Harling employ holidays as a framework to signify time change after the wedding (Christmas, 4th of July, Halloween, and Easter). It's not the most original device (see Vincent Minnelli's 1944 MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS). Even with that device, t's hard to tell if time passing is within the same year or a year later.
Shirley MacLaine, Sally Field, and Olympia Dukakis bring the prestige and Academy Award pedigree (all Oscar winners with Field winning twice) to STEEL MAGNOLIAS but the real surprises are the newer actresses Julia Roberts and Daryl Hannah. For Julia Roberts who earned her first Academy Award nomination as the tragically brave Shelby, STEEL MAGNOLIAS would be her breakout film. Roberts had turned heads with MYSTIC PIZZA (1988) but nothing propels a career for a young actress like playing a vivacious woman dying at an early age (ask Debra Winger who played a similar role in James L. Brooks 1983 TERMS OF ENDEARMENT also starring Shirley MacLaine). Roberts would follow up the surprise hit STEEL MAGNOLIAS with the even bigger 1990 mega surprise hit PRETTY WOMEN directed by Gerry Marshall and never look back. Roberts would win her own Oscar as Best Actress in Steven Soderbergh's ERIN BROCKOVICH (2000).
Daryl Hannah was best known as a glamorous young actress who briefly dated John F. Kennedy Jr. Hannah had appeared as the punk replicant Pris in Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER (1982) and as the beautiful mermaid Madison in Ron Howard's SPLASH. (1984). Hannah eschews her pretty looks in STEEL MAGNOLIAS going with horn rimmed glasses and a homeliness as Annelle that makes the audience feel empathy for her. Annelle has the most character development of the six female leads in STEEL MAGNOLIA as she goes through three phases in the film: introvert, extrovert, and finally religious nut. It's a nice change of pace role for Hannah. Special kudos to Dolly Parton as Truvy. Primarily known as a country/western singer/songwriter, we know Parton can act in films like NINE TO FIVE (1980) or RHINESTONE (1984) but Parton was primarily playing herself. As Truvy in STEEL MAGNOLIAS, Parton shows some dramatic depth, her salon a refuge for the women to bear their souls and for Truvy to reveal her true self as well.
Earlier, I mentioned that director Herbert Ross may have been chosen to direct STEEL MAGNOLIAS as he had directed some other strong female centric films like THE TURNING POINT. But actresses who have worked with Ross do not always have fond words for him. In a 60 MINUTES interview I saw with Maggie Smith who worked with Ross on CALIFORNIA SUITE (1978), Smith found Ross very difficult to work with. Ross is said to have been hard on Dolly Parton in STEEL MAGNOLIAS. Even veteran actresses Shirley McLaine and Sally Field found Ross tough to work with. Yet their performances are wonderful in the end.
Ross's filmography is eclectic. He directed five comedies written by Neil Simon (and often produced by Ray Stark who produced STEEL MAGNOLIAS) including CALIFORNIA SUITE and THE GOODBYE GIRL (1977). He directed musicals like GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS (1969), FUNNY LADY, and believe it or not FOOTLOOSE (1984) starring Kevin Bacon. Ross even directed one of my favorite whodunit films called THE LAST OF SHEILA (1973) with Richard Benjamin, James Coburn, and Dyan Cannon.
The play Steel Magnolias would open Off-Broadway in New York in 1987 and go on to a National Tour, play at the West End in London, eventually on Broadway, and then around the world in various productions providing meaty roles for actresses young and old including Nicole Kidman's professional stage debut as Shelby in an Australian production in 1988. Besides the 1989 version of STEEL MAGNOLIAS we've just looked at, there would be a Lifetime television production of STEEL MAGNOLIAS in 2012 with an African American cast including Alfe Woodard, Queen Latifah, and Phylicia Rashad. Not a bad legacy to a playwright's desire to tell his deceased sister's courageous story.
With the success of STEEL MAGNOLIAS, we would begin to see more female ensemble films from Hollywood like Jon Avnet's FRIED GREEN TOMATOES (1991) with Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson, and Mary-Louise Parker; DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD (2002) with Sandra Bullock, Ellen Burstyn, Maggie Smith and directed by a woman Callie Khouri (screenwriter of the engaging female driven THELMA AND LOUISE); and THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELNG PANTS (2005) with a younger group of actresses Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, and Blake Lively. Just recently, we even had an OCEAN'S ELEVEN reboot called OCEAN'S EIGHT (2018) with a star studded all-female cast including Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Annet Hathaway, and Helena Bonham-Carter directed by Gary Ross. If you have a good story, it doesn't matter whether it's an all-female or all male cast. It will work and audiences will come to see it.
Although not a perfect film, STEEL MAGNOLIAS captures the heart and essence of the play while providing six esteemed actresses with juicy three-dimensional roles. It's a story that won't age and will provide future generations of actresses young and old the opportunity to bond in a story about a young woman's perseverance to be a mother. If that isn't a guarantee to have the audience weeping by the end of the story, I don't know what will.
