What he may have meant to say was that it was an all-female cast No matter, the show ran 657 performances in 1936-7. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times didn't much like the play: he flinched from the stinging portrait of "some of the most odious harpies ever collected in one play". In other words, it's a movie about the unofficial club for bruised but sophisticated ladies in which all men are revealed as snakes and heels - but essential.The 1939 movie was written by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin (top-of-the-line screenwriters) and adapted from the Broadway play by Clare Boothe. Years ahead of its time, and a great deal in advance in wit, speed and true feeling, it's a bit like a premonition of The First Wives Club (1996). Made in 1939 and now being revived (with a remake in the pipeline), it's a very enjoyable film, even if 1939 provided intense competition.

It may even be that the movies began to die as we got the idea that we were hip with sex. But back to The Women. Of course, I write as a man, and I know that all these huge statements can be flipped around to suit either sex. But deep down I have this feeling that the movies came to men and women at a certain moment in history as a gift or a mercy - as a way of helping us handle the great fear of sex. Isn't it perfect that a movie should be called The Women? Indeed, it's one of those great archetypal titles that describe the movies as a whole and not just one particular story.

I can think of other titles like that - They Live by Night, I Saw What You Did, or (to invent one, but which encapsulated my first feelings about going to the movies) Are You Brave Enough to Go Into the Dark and Look at Ladies? In another way, that whole wondering is a critical commentary on great films like Vertigo, Blue Velvet and Celine and Julie Go Boating. But you read it here - I think Kerry is going to win by a lot. And my reasons have to do with character, with the helpless revelation of factual film, and the culture of the cellphone.d.thomson independent.co.uk. These people are not easily polled - so many of them do not have listed phone numbers No poll knows how to reach cellphone-people And that leads to my prediction. I daresay the sober, well-informed political pages in this and other papers will say that the election is desperately close And it is desperate if Bush has a chance of coming back. Many people I know tease polling calls (just to waste the pollster's time).