Bridal Suite (1939)

Margo likes movies from the 30s, so get ready for some extra-old classics!

We watched this a few months ago so my memory is a little rusty but it also wasn't all that great...Robert Young plays an irresponsible playboy who forgets his own wedding day...TWICE. I mean, it's kind of hard to get behind the marriage at that point no matter how invested you may be in a happy ending.
His father is quite properly disgusted with him and cuts him off. His mother, indulgent to a fault, decides he needs a doctor's note from her favorite psychiatrist and drags him to Switzerland where the hapless doctor is vacationing in his chalet.
I'll tell you that this photo is of the happy young playboy and his innocent mountain maiden. And I'll tell you that there is a happy ending. But I will be damned if I'm going to explain the intricacies of the strudel-making, glockspiel-playing, antics in pajamas and avalanche-inducing yodeling that we will have to endure in order to arrive at that happy ending.
Margo looked up the starring actress, Annabella, and learned that she was all the rage in France and was imported with great fanfare to America, to no great success. You can see why. Though she comes across as sincere and sweet and Robert Young is affable as always, there is nothing to really excite you about their chemistry.
Ultimately, it's a silly movie.
Will not watch again. Two stars.

Please Believe Me (1950)

Deborah Kerr, Deborah Kerr, why are you so lovely? And why are you always embarking on steamship journeys when we meet you? Oh, I know - it's because that's where you meet the charming, debonair men who break your heart!

So you're on a cruise ship, bound for America where you will collect your inheritance of a Texas ranch which, unbeknownst to you, is completely worthless.



Having heard reports of her new-found wealth, three lovesick men find her loveliness irresistible in this movie: a gambler who needs to pay off his debts to a scary gangster, a wealthy playboy who could care less about her wealth, and the lawyer of the playboy, who makes love to her in the most awkward, over-blown, over-planned, clinical way imaginable.

Fortunately, Kerr's Character, Alison Kirby, is clever enough to decipher American slang, see through some of the most obvious angles her suitors are playing, and survive the somewhat confusing plot unscathed.

She's charming, her costumes are charming, and she's one of the most intelligent heroines I've seen in a classic movie. I mean plenty of women are witty in old movies - but how many are the authors of their own plot twists?

For that reason if for no other, three stars. I could give this four if the leading man had been a little bit charming, but he was a dork. Endearing, but I do love a dashing hero for my sassy heroine!

Probably won't watch again.

Love Affair (1939)

So, not only did I see "An Affair to Remember" first, but until recently (probably because of you) I never even realized that it was based on another movie..."Love Affair." Now I know that it is not really based on "Love Affair," it is "Love Affair." It's been a few years since I saw the 50s movie, but I was actually able to recite a lot of the lines in "Love Affair" right along with the movie and say things like, "Now they're going to meet his grandmother, and she's going to offer Terry her shawl when she dies." Now I have to watch "An Affair to Remember" again before I forget this movie and see how much of it is identical. Although, with Leo McCarey directing and writing both movies, I'm sure the newer one will be as identical as I think it's going to be. But with the addition of an orange Cary Grant.

Do I need to explain the plot? American Terry McKay (Dunne) meets the charming French playboy Michel Marnet (Charles Boyer) on a ship from Europe to the US. They are both engaged, but...they fall in love. After a lot of flirting, some painful silences, and the fear of imminent docking, they decide that if what they have is real, in six months they will meet on the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building at 5:00 pm on July 1.



Of course Terry is hit by a car and paralyzed on her way to meet Michel. "I was looking up...you were up there." And of course Michel waits until midnight in a thunderstorm and leaves hurt and furious. And of course Terry is unwilling to call him and tell him what has happened. She's just waiting to learn to walk again so she can run into his arms. Even knowing the plot, it still feels horrible to watch it unfold.

Why Irene Dunne is wonderful:
She really does have perfect timing. Even though this is not at all a comedy, every once in a while you can see how great she is at delivering, for lack of a better word, sassy comebacks. When Michel first meets Terry, he starts trying to butter her up with all sorts of comments about how bored he was before he met her and how he was worried beautiful women didn't travel anymore. Just as my friends were saying, "I'd be throwing him out at this point," Terry shoots back with, "Have you been getting results with a line like that?" She also manages to get in a very nice, "How's your fiancee?"



Random final detail of interest: The creator of Pepe Le Pew modeled the skunk's voice and mannerisms after Charles Boyer.

No More Ladies (1935)

There is another movie like the Women!!



More Joan Crawford!
More Witty lines!
Another wise older relative! (Grandmother instead of mother).
And now with - large shaggy dog! (instead of the oddly precocious child, I suppose).

This seems to have been the prequel to the Women - in it one woman is determined to keep her playboy husband at home. At least in this version of the story the other woman is not an inhuman bitch and the man takes most of the blame for his own behavior.

Also, you have to love the grandmother - clearly she was the inspiration behind several Carol Burnett characters. It makes me very sad that I could not find a picture of her to share with you.

What is it with the 30s and divorce movies? I guess the 30s were pretty hard times for the family values crowd. These movies put the controversy at the center of the story, but the main characters end up not divorcing.

But then again, what movie has a happy divorce? It just doesn't make a good movie. Nope, the prerequisite of a romantic comedy is that it must end in marriage.

Philadelphia Story, The Awful Truth, The Women, His Girl Friday - all of these almost-divorce movies end with happy marriages - and three end with a recently divorced couple getting back together again and, presumably getting re-married to each other.

Joan Crawford's wardrobe could have won a best supporting actor award - except for the one that looks like the dog's post-surgery collar got stuck to her head by accident. They had some pretty out-there ideas in the thirties.

Cousin Edgar and Granny Fanny alone are worth the price of admission. Someday I will go back and transcribe some of the better lines for you.

Four Stars. Will definitely watch again - probably as a double-feature with the women.