Review by 1930s_Time_Machine

If you want a definition of an early thirties melodrama, this is it. If you want to explain what type of film MGM made then this is it. If you want to know what people in the early thirties enjoyed then watch this superbly made picture.

If you're like me, weepy sentimental melodramas might not be your thing but I have to admit even I felt a bit tearful at the end. There's nothing particularly outstanding about it but it's just so classy and well made. Veteran director Edgar Selwyn, one of the founding fathers of MGM, didn't use any tricks, he just used experience and professionalism to engage with his audience - and it still works more than ninety years later.

Although a thirty year long story is squeezed into an hour and a half, it doesn't feel rushed. It's paced perfectly allowing you to thoroughly get to know Helen Hayes' character - you think her thoughts, you feel her hopes and you feel her despair. After the prelude section I thought it was going to be just another of those 'girl from the wrong side of the tracks meets a society guy who's family make him marry someone more suitable' stories. The very first part is that well trodden story and you then start to wonder if it's worth carrying on watching but keep with it. It develops into something much more interesting, something richer with real in-depth characters.

By about half time, you're thinking like a 1930s person and it's interesting to reflect afterwards how fifty year old Lewis Stone's proposal to young Helen Hayes seemed perfectly normal to your 1930s alter ego. Marriage wasn't about love, it wasn't something borne out of passion, it wasn't about finding a soul mate. It was a necessary arrangement. For a man it gave him a pretty companion, a housekeeper, a means of creating an heir but for a woman it was an absolute requirement. It gave her security, it gave her somewhere to live. There wasn't really any alternative - or as we find out in this story, there was but it wasn't nice.

So even if you would have been the type who'd probably have been at the Warner Brothers cinema instead watching James Cagney with a Tommy gun, you'll still enjoy this. It doesn't really give you a feel of the early thirties but shows you how they thought.

Interestingly, poor little Marie Prevost's character in this is called Rosalie - the same name and very possibly the same character she played in Edgar Selwyn's WAR NURSE.