William Nestrick is professor of English and was founding chair of the Film Studies major at Berkeley. Generally known as a character who takes her housewifely duties a little too far, Harriet Craig (Rosalind Russell) actually spends little screen time overseeing domestic upkeep. Her true obsession is with order and control over every element in her immediate environment, people and vases alike. Her sister's illness and niece's romance should be as responsive to her will as bedspread creases and flower-petal litter. Harriet Craig is scary not because she takes her female mandate too far, but because she is a woman who seeks to control and dominate. Her tragedy is the societal constraint on her choice of objectives and her own limited imagination in selecting her methods. Perhaps even more threatening is her eschewal of emotion and lack of solicitousness of others' feelings. Underscoring this is a largely female supporting cast whose entire lives seem lived in the affective sphere, providing others, especially Mr. Craig, with comfort and support.-Lee Amazonas