Ann Harding plays a psychiatrist, Dr. Mary White, in a relationship with Dr. Gordon Phillips (Herbert Marshall). They are at a costume party, and it is most amusing to see them talking over the serious issue of how Phillips wants to marry Mary but wants her to give up her career in the bargain. I think Marshall still has his plastic clown nose on as they discuss this outside in the dark, with the party going on within.
And then a complication. Mary has a new patient whose problem is...I really don't get it. Maureen O'Sullivan plays Linda Belton, a poor little rich girl who is suicidal because she is in love with a poor little rich guy (Louis Hayward as Jack Kerry). In one really over the top scene she opens the windows in Mary's office and tries to jump out, but Mary stops her. Note: probably not a good idea to have unlocked windows in a high floor office if you are a psychiatrist.
Does the rich guy not love her? No, that's not the problem. Instead Linda is hysterical because Jack cares for absolutely nothing and is a hopeless alcoholic. Maureen O'Sullivan as Mary is playing a girl of about 20 or so, so my advice would be - get a grip, make some chamomile tea, throw this fish back in the sea, go find someone else without what could be a lifetime of baggage. In a year you won't remember his name. But then we would have no movie.
Now the scenes that follow, between Mary and Jack as she guides him through leaving alcohol behind and finding something in life he wants to do - remember this is the Depression and most people just want to EAT - are the best scenes in the film. She really does lead him out of the fog. He marries Linda, but he is still in love with Mary, because she is the woman who really understands him. Linda acts as unlikable as a jealous wife as she did as a hysterical would-be suicide. But perhaps that was because all of the medical and psychological effort so far has been on keeping Jack on the wagon and getting him motivated to work, while nobody bothered to deal with the fact that Linda was so emotionally needy that having a particular person in her life was literally a matter of life and death. But I digress.
Hayward and Harding have a very genuine scene in which they discuss their feelings. In the end, Hayward stays with O'Sullivan. Of course he does. This is the production code era! People only left their spouses and lived happily ever after or rejected motherhood for career until 1934! Now I say the scene is great, but I really mean the lines and the performances are terrific. In reality I can't get over the fact that Harding and Hayward look every day of their eight year age difference, even though Harding retains a chiseled timeless beauty here at her actual age of 34. Then there is the fact that Hayward has been acting the boyish youth this whole time while Harding is behaving like the mature woman in the prime of life. I just couldn't see it working or even the attraction, especially from Harding's character's perspective.
Don't get the idea that I don't like the performers in general. This was just a year after the production code started, and thus women could only be traditional, everybody had to be honorable or else be struck by a meteorite in keeping with wrongdoers being punished, and don't you dare mention that any of this looks trite compared to the problems of people facing starvation in the Depression or else you might start a revolution! It was about another five years before American cinema got the hang of having characters behaving like living human beings again without violating the code, so I'm going to land this mess in the lap of Joe Breen, head censor at the time.
And then a complication. Mary has a new patient whose problem is...I really don't get it. Maureen O'Sullivan plays Linda Belton, a poor little rich girl who is suicidal because she is in love with a poor little rich guy (Louis Hayward as Jack Kerry). In one really over the top scene she opens the windows in Mary's office and tries to jump out, but Mary stops her. Note: probably not a good idea to have unlocked windows in a high floor office if you are a psychiatrist.
Does the rich guy not love her? No, that's not the problem. Instead Linda is hysterical because Jack cares for absolutely nothing and is a hopeless alcoholic. Maureen O'Sullivan as Mary is playing a girl of about 20 or so, so my advice would be - get a grip, make some chamomile tea, throw this fish back in the sea, go find someone else without what could be a lifetime of baggage. In a year you won't remember his name. But then we would have no movie.
Now the scenes that follow, between Mary and Jack as she guides him through leaving alcohol behind and finding something in life he wants to do - remember this is the Depression and most people just want to EAT - are the best scenes in the film. She really does lead him out of the fog. He marries Linda, but he is still in love with Mary, because she is the woman who really understands him. Linda acts as unlikable as a jealous wife as she did as a hysterical would-be suicide. But perhaps that was because all of the medical and psychological effort so far has been on keeping Jack on the wagon and getting him motivated to work, while nobody bothered to deal with the fact that Linda was so emotionally needy that having a particular person in her life was literally a matter of life and death. But I digress.
Hayward and Harding have a very genuine scene in which they discuss their feelings. In the end, Hayward stays with O'Sullivan. Of course he does. This is the production code era! People only left their spouses and lived happily ever after or rejected motherhood for career until 1934! Now I say the scene is great, but I really mean the lines and the performances are terrific. In reality I can't get over the fact that Harding and Hayward look every day of their eight year age difference, even though Harding retains a chiseled timeless beauty here at her actual age of 34. Then there is the fact that Hayward has been acting the boyish youth this whole time while Harding is behaving like the mature woman in the prime of life. I just couldn't see it working or even the attraction, especially from Harding's character's perspective.
Don't get the idea that I don't like the performers in general. This was just a year after the production code started, and thus women could only be traditional, everybody had to be honorable or else be struck by a meteorite in keeping with wrongdoers being punished, and don't you dare mention that any of this looks trite compared to the problems of people facing starvation in the Depression or else you might start a revolution! It was about another five years before American cinema got the hang of having characters behaving like living human beings again without violating the code, so I'm going to land this mess in the lap of Joe Breen, head censor at the time.