Irene Dunne marries Charles Bickford soon after the movie begins. She longs to leave the steel town where they live but he's content to stay in his job as a laborer. However, through her determination and frugality, she is able to eventually convince him to take a gamble and strike out on his own. Fortunately, perhaps, they strike it rich and their life seems perfect. Perfect, that is, until Bickford starts running around with a money-hungry tramp who urges him to dump his long-suffering wife--leading to a super-melodramatic conclusion in the courtroom.
I love old movies, so it takes a lot to turn me off of any film from Hollywood's Golden Age...but this terrible film managed to do it. Despite having the excellent Irene Dunne in the lead, this film just isn't worth your time--mostly because the last 20 minutes of the film manage to undo any good feelings I had for the rest of the movie! Here's the problem. Irene Dunne is the perfect wife in this film...too perfect--Mary Poppins perfect. Even when Bickford proves that he's a wretched jerk and cheats on her, Dunne is like some sort of saint and she refuses to divorce him. Then, when Bickford and his sleazy lawyer drum up fake charges that SHE is committing adultery, Dunne is just too sweet to really fight back. In a courtroom scene that is just too melodramatic to be true, her ultimate niceness convinces the evil Bickford to admit it is all a frame-up and he is taken away to prison.
The worst part about this terribly over-the-top scene is not the silly way Bickford, now stricken with guilt, jumps up and admits the truth (though this is a ridiculous scene), but the way that lawyer J. Carrol Naish is allowed to attack Dunne on the witness stand! Even courts in the old Soviet Union might flinch at such a brow-beating--and yet her lawyer never objects and the judge seems content to preside over a sham of a hearing! This is just the sort of film they should show young law students in order to elicit a few laughs at all the histrionics.
Believe me that there are thousands of better films out there from the 1930s waiting to be discovered. Try almost ANY film of the era and you're bound to be better off than with this silly dud. And, additionally, almost any other Dunne film is better than this creaky old pile of...melodrama.
I love old movies, so it takes a lot to turn me off of any film from Hollywood's Golden Age...but this terrible film managed to do it. Despite having the excellent Irene Dunne in the lead, this film just isn't worth your time--mostly because the last 20 minutes of the film manage to undo any good feelings I had for the rest of the movie! Here's the problem. Irene Dunne is the perfect wife in this film...too perfect--Mary Poppins perfect. Even when Bickford proves that he's a wretched jerk and cheats on her, Dunne is like some sort of saint and she refuses to divorce him. Then, when Bickford and his sleazy lawyer drum up fake charges that SHE is committing adultery, Dunne is just too sweet to really fight back. In a courtroom scene that is just too melodramatic to be true, her ultimate niceness convinces the evil Bickford to admit it is all a frame-up and he is taken away to prison.
The worst part about this terribly over-the-top scene is not the silly way Bickford, now stricken with guilt, jumps up and admits the truth (though this is a ridiculous scene), but the way that lawyer J. Carrol Naish is allowed to attack Dunne on the witness stand! Even courts in the old Soviet Union might flinch at such a brow-beating--and yet her lawyer never objects and the judge seems content to preside over a sham of a hearing! This is just the sort of film they should show young law students in order to elicit a few laughs at all the histrionics.
Believe me that there are thousands of better films out there from the 1930s waiting to be discovered. Try almost ANY film of the era and you're bound to be better off than with this silly dud. And, additionally, almost any other Dunne film is better than this creaky old pile of...melodrama.