Cinema: Something for the Girls

The Group. Nearly every reader of Mary McCarthy's bitchy, college-bred bestseller—and even many who ostentatiously refused to read it—should find this movie irresistible. Miss McCarthy's heroines were eight little Vassar grads, class of '33, who threw away their books to learn firsthand about life, men, sexual fulfillment and social betterment in the turbulent years between commencement day and the beginning of World War II. The film omits some of the minor evidence against them and succeeds as a suds opera far superior to the ordinary household brand. Sharply written by Scenarist Sidney Buchman,...