AllMovie

George Kelly's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Craig's Wife was given three screen treatments by Hollywood. The first of these was filmed in 1928, with Cecil B. DeMille's talented brother William in the director's chair. Irene Rich stars as Harriet Craig, whose obsession with material possessions and immaculate neatness results in misery for all concerned. Harriet's husband (Warner Baxter) remains blind to his wife's selfishness-until his eyes are opened when he is implicated in a double murder. Discovering that Harriet cares more about her home than her husband, Mr. Craig declares his independence by walking out and leaving her utterly alone -- but not before flicking plenty of cigar ashes on her hitherto spotless living-room rug. Craig's Wife was remade under its original title in 1936, with Rosalind Russell in the lead; it was filmed for a third time in 1950, as the Joan Crawford vehicle Harriet Craig.