Oh, no. Meg, say it ain't so.

Meg Ryan was one of the hottest women on the silver screen at one time, and one of the most endearing. Her face was perfect, the very definition of cute. And now comes word she wasn't OK with the idea of aging gracefully.

I haven't seen her lately — well, technically I haven't seen her ever, but I haven't seen her image lately, so I was aghast while reading an otherwise entertaining review of the apparently terrible movie The Women, to read:

Meanwhile, unacknowledged is Ryan’s obvious extensive plastic surgery, which makes her look like someone trick or treating as Meg Ryan circa 1992, rather than the forty-seven year-old woman she, in fact, is.

Oh, no. Meg, say it ain't so. But, apparently, it is so. I never will understand why women are tempted to disfigure themselves rather than accept the aging process.

On a related subject, the compilation of reviews at Rotten Tomatoes presents a Tomatometer reading of 10 percent, which is one of the worst ratings I've ever seen at RT. The film's only redeeming quality seems to be that it draws attention to the terrific 1939 film starring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine and dozens of other talented women.

The only reason the original The Women isn't a well-known classic that won the Best Picture Academy Award is that it was made in 1939. There's something amazingly magical about that year — Gone With The Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Of Mice and Men, Ninotchka, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights, Stagecoach, Gunga Din, Union Pacific, The Rains Came, Intermezzo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Destry Rides Again, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Love Affair, Dark Victory, The Man in the Iron Mask, Young Mr. Lincoln, Goodbye Mr. Chips — It's like some magnificent creative mist settled in the air whenever someone tried to make a movie in 1939.