Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!

jjnxn-1 High class soap opera with the MGM sheen and a cast of great actors. Joan's a respectable if restless performer who marries Melvyn Douglas on a whim and goes back to his family home where trouble awaits and that's when the fun begins. The story of family animosity and dangerous attraction isn't anything new but as presented here by these super professionals and director Borzage they find ways to make it compelling. Joan is unquestionably the star of this enterprise and she holds her own with the strong cast that surrounds her while looking glamorous and suffering nobly.Fay Bainter turns her usual warm and understanding persona on its ear as a harridan twisted by jealousy and bitterness. Robert Young turns in good work as a bit of a weasel and Melvyn Douglas although Joan titular co-star really doesn't have much to do and is absent from a good deal of the film but he does what is required of him with his usual skill. The marvelous Hattie McDaniel has a tiny role as Joan's maid with the improbable name of Belvedere and injects a small dose of levity into the heavy going dramatics.Good though they may be and Joan is the queen of this little opus they are all outshone by one of their fellow actors. Margaret Sullavan as Young wife gives a performance of such quiet beauty she wipes anyone else off the screen whenever she's on it. An actress of great skill and subtle intensity she makes her Judy a character that seems far more real and relatable than anybody else on screen. Her output was small, only 16 films in total, but she always had a vivid and alive presence on screen. If you enjoy dramas with an adult, if a tad melodramatic, outlook enacted by talented performers this is for you.

Poseidon-3 Perhaps some audience members found this dramatic and sophisticated in 1938 (though that is questionable), but today this Crawford vehicle is entertaining for entirely different reasons, its camp value, its sets and costumes and its snippy dialogue. Crawford (in an ironically autobiographical role) plays a girl from a low-income background who has reinvented herself as a cosmopolitan dancer, complete with smashing wardrobe, deluxe apartment and affected accent and manner. When Douglas, heir and head of a major farm, falls for her and needles her into marrying him, she is transported to the country where she is faced with scrutinizing brother-in-law Young, his kind, but demure, wife Sullavan and downright hostile sister-in-law Bainter who doesn't even let her get in the door before the remarks start flying! Crawford has devoted Douglas and even more devoted maid McDaniel on her side (as well as easily-impressed Sullavan), but Bainter is in a power position and tends to ride roughshod over the others. When Young changes from judge to admirer where Crawford's concerned and she begins to reciprocate those feelings, there's a lot of trouble in store for everyone. Crawford has many fine moments here along with many loving close-ups. She's hardly an elegant enough dancer, despite her history as a Charleston champ, to warrant all the fuss she's given in the early part of the film, but she gives a stalwart, concerned performance. Her second-to-last outfit has the type of shoulder pads that she soon became infamous for (perhaps to allow her male stunt double a little bit of visual leeway?) Sullavan, often shrouded in softer focus than Crawford, is likable and natural. It's interesting to watch the Queen of controlled artifice square off against the stage-trained emotiveness of Sullavan and, when it comes to commanding the screen, it's pretty much a draw. She is generally effective up until her completely ludicrous final scene, which can't help but elicit giggles thanks to the preposterous handling, styling-wise. It's a wonder Claude Rains didn't enter the room and make a play for her! Douglas is appealing throughout, though perhaps a bit more backbone might have been desired in his character, especially with regards to Bainter and primarily with her during the denouement! Young tries hard and does well, but simply does not have the looks or the magnetism to inspire the type of passionate feelings that Crawford and Sullavan are meant to have for him. Not only does he not resemble a sibling of Douglas or Bainter, but also he just isn't a figure that would get the ladies this heated up, especially when some of his pertinent close-ups suggest a crossed-eye. Bainter gets a rare chance to play a bitch on wheels and savors it. Her character has severe and mostly unjustified mood swings, the side effect of a very unevenly written script, rendering her character nearly unplayable, but she gives her lines delicious nastiness and condescension. Her face-offs with Crawford are a highlight. McDaniel is typically enjoyable as a dot of comic relief. A year later, she'd be cuddling an Oscar for her role in "Gone With the Wind". This film heavily echoes 1933's "The Silver Cord" and it's often easy to forget that Bainter is Douglas and Young's sister and not their mother. The storyline seems to be missing key moments that would explain radical changes in the characters' feelings, but it remains compelling nonetheless. The parade of sometimes overly frilly Adrian gowns, the detailed and nicely appointed sets, the overripe dialogue and the verbal cat-fights between the characters make this a high camp masterpiece, never more so than when Young enters Sullavan's room near the finale. One woozy drinking game could be played by downing a shot every time a character refers to how hot it is, though they are always weighted down with heavy clothes!

ilprofessore-1 A perfect example of the Thalberg/Selnick/MGM high-style at its most polished. Flawlessly directed by the under-rated contract director Frank Borzage, the film features superb ensemble work from the entire stellar cast plus an unusually malicious turn by Fay Bainter who never quite showed her lady-like fangs like this before. Adapted from a well-made Broadway play of 1934, the sexual tension between the two unloving couples could never be realized as it might have been had there not been censorship so instead of a little explosive adultery and fiery hanky-panky, as the plot seems to suggest, we end up with a hot summer night instead with everyone complaining about the heat until the "burning" resolution --but not the one you might think. (Had Tennessee Williams been around in those days we might have had an entirely different ending.) Yes, it is definitely a soap opera but MGM always gave us the best soap money could buy!

theowinthrop It's soap opera, but it is good soap opera, with several good performances in it.Joan Crawford is a Broadway dancing star, helped on her way up by Allan Joslyn. Joslyn would like it to be the start of a marriage, but his cynical frame of mind is not what Crawford can accept (outside of friendship). She meets wealthy Wisconsin gentleman farmer Melvin Douglas, and he gets her to agree to marry him (Joslyn is uncertain about the wisdom of the move, not only from self-interest but from concern that Crawford will be a fish out of water). Another party who is troubled by the marriage is Douglas's brother Robert Young, who thinks Crawford will be too like her friends. Despite this Young and Douglas marry, and soon are in Wisconsin. They bring with them Hattie MacDaniel, Crawford's smart maid.(A small point about the film - MacDaniel had not gotten her Oscar yet for GONE WITH THE WIND but there are moments when the camera is concentrating on her, and when she is involved in scenes, where any other African-American actress of the period (say Louise Beavers) playing a maid would not have gotten camera time - I wonder if this was because Hattie was photogenic and the movie crews were noticing this, or because David Selznick may have noticed her and requested some additional footage for her. She handles the role with customary humor and spice.) Crawford finds (although she has had hints) that Douglas' older sister (Fay Bainter) is cold and hostile. More about this later. Young's wife (Margaret Sullivan) is very friendly and sweet. But although Crawford warms up to Sullivan, Young (who had been initially cold to the marriage) begins showing a different attitude: he is falling in love with Crawford. Bainter takes an "I told you so!" attitude to this, and Sullivan becomes increasingly miserable. Only Douglas seems oblivious - in particular because Crawford is making every effort to remain faithful.The climax concerns the dream house that Douglas and Crawford were planning to build a few miles from Bainter's home. Instead of being a solution to the twisted mess, it becomes a magnet for the coming disaster. It is only with the disaster that the relations are sorted out.Now about Bainter: This film was made within three years of the renewal (and new teeth) to the Hollywood Production Code. As such, certain things could be said and certain things couldn't. In terms of the code, the film fits properly. But with Bainter, they managed (or that fine actress did) to push the envelope a little. In a confrontation scene with Douglas, Bainter reveals something about her private feelings. She hates Crawford, and tells Douglas to get rid of her, eventually saying, "I'm your sister and I love you!" Her character is a repressed spinster type (she is the oldest of the siblings), and she has never really been close to Sullivan (although the latter grew up in the area). One gets the impression Bainter has certain incestuous feelings for Douglas and even Young (and that the former chooses to overlook these, and the latter resents them). This seems to be the first time this kind of situation arises in a film prior to Geraldine Fitzgerald's performance as George Sanders' possessive sister in THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF UNCLE HARRY, but that at time was slightly more explicit.With Frank Albertson in a supporting part as a rustic with jazz trumpet ambitions (who momentarily makes the situation for Crawford get a bit murkier).