The First Wives Club

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The First Wives Club
Directed by Hugh Wilson
Produced by Scott Rudin
Written by Olivia Goldsmith
Robert Harling
Starring Bette Midler
Goldie Hawn
Diane Keaton
Maggie Smith
Sarah Jessica Parker
Elizabeth Berkley
Dan Hedaya
Stockard Channing
Music by Marc Shaiman
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) September 20, 1996
Running time 103 min.
Language English
Budget $26,000,000
IMDb profile

The First Wives Club is a 1996 movie directed by Hugh Wilson based on the novel by Olivia Goldsmith. It stars Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, and Diane Keaton as three divorced women who seek revenge on their husbands who left them for younger women.

The movie helped R&B singer Puff Johnson score a world-wide hit with the movie's theme song "Over & Over".

Composer/arranger Marc Shaiman was nominated for an Oscar for his score.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Elise Elliott (Goldie Hawn), Brenda Cushman (Bette Midler), Annie Paradis (Diane Keaton), and Cynthia Griffin (Stockard Channing) were best friends at Middlebury College during the 1960s, but marriage and children force them to drift apart. Decades later, Cynthia commits suicide because her husband has divorced her, leaving her to feel alone. The remaining three reunite at her funeral. After the funeral, Annie, Brenda and Elise go out for lunch and learn that their husbands are divorcing them too - and like Cynthia's ex-husband, taking up with younger women.

All three had helped their husband's careers, and all three feel they are being shafted. They get revenge by ruining their husbands careers. Brenda exposes Morty's (Dan Hedaya) income tax fraud. Elise reveals that Bill (Victor Garber)'s mistress is a minor and ruins his reputation. Annie buys out Aaron's (Stephen Collins) advertising business. Finding mere revenge unsatisfying, they open a non-profit organization dedicated to aiding abused women.

It is important to note that the plot of the movie diverges significantly from that of the novel. In the novel, the wives also seek revenge on Cynthia's ex-husband Gil (James Naughton), each wife has a romantic subplot, and the children have more significant roles.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Trivia

  • Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, and Diane Keaton were all born within 45 days of each other, and celebrated their 50th birthdays together while filming this movie.
  • "The First Wives Club" is the second time that Diane Keaton and Jennifer Dundas (Lowe) have played mother and daughter. The first time was in "Mrs. Soffel" in 1984, when Dundas was still being billed as Jennie Dundas.
  • Jon Stewart had a small part in the film but it was left on the cutting room floor.
  • When the three ladies meet after the funeral, they are talking about Elise's plastic surgery. Brenda asks Elise whether she got "a little bit or the full enchilada?" Originally, the line was filmed as "...or the full Ivana?" but was redubbed in post-production (and noticably corrected with a different camera angle towards the end of the line, obscuring Brenda's mouth) once Ivana Trump was cast in a cameo.
  • Hugh Wilson cast his daughter, Cannon, for the crew of the commercial that Morty is shooting when they come kidnap him.
  • Doctors created Goldie Hawn's simulated collagen treatment by injecting her lips with a harmless saline solution. Though temporary, Hawn later remarked in interviews that the experience was quite painful and that it had discouraged her from ever getting collagen for real.
  • In an interview, Bette Midler mentioned that all three main cast members wanted to make a sequel, but the studio was unwilling to go ahead with a sequel because they viewed the success of this film as a "fluke". Midler also said that just before the movie opened, she was told it would not do very well because the film was competing against action movies with male stars such as Bruce Willis. This film opened at number one and out-grossed those action movies.
  • The theatrical trailer features snippets of scenes that were not included in the final film.
  • This film is Timothy Olyphant's screen debut.
  • Ironically, Goldie Hawn, who played a woman who divorced her husband and her ex-husband ends up with a younger woman, divorced her husband and since 1982 have been living with Kurt Russell who is younger than she is.
  • Heather Locklear appears in a no-line scene (the funeral scene) during the first half of the film. She plays the younger woman for whom Stockard Channing's husband left her.
  • Coincidentally, Diane Keaton and Stephen Collins appear together as on-screen couples in both this movie and Because I Said So (2007).

[edit] External links

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