The Right to Romance

It's sad that there are now, one or two generations who don't know about Ann Harding. Why she isn't as memorable as other MGM headliners I'll never know. Thankfully, we have these well preserved films for their legacy to live on and to memorialize the art. The 'Right To Romance' has to be the BEST movie of 1933. It stands against competition that rate solid 9.9 and less but this rates truly a 10.0. Once watched, you will become a fan of Ann Harding who gives the strongest performance of her career. A well written story which allows Nils Asther to display his acting talent too, (which outshines Robert Montgomery). This movie is short, to the point, memorable and besides, an amazingly well written story. Blow the dust off this one and find a young friend who you'd like to turn onto an ageless but forgotten classic. I promise, you won't regret it.

You must see, "Double Harness"-1933, to appreciate how GREAT an actress Ms. Harding was!... i thought lots of comments were posted on the film site,or her biography site, butijust checked, and most were gone;what happened to them?

I thought there were at least 5 posts saying what great heights Ms. Harding's subtle performance achieved! She had been nominated for Academy award in 1930 for, "Holiday". Marie Dressler won that year for "Min, and Bill"- a great performance,too!This movie,"Holiday", was remade with Katherine Hepburn, and Cary Grant in 1938. This was a great comedy... but sadly the Harding movie is almost in total disrepair at the Library of Congress. You must see Double Harness!!!!!!!!!!

For some reason, the name Ann Harding today doesn't have the cache of some of her "strong woman" type contemporaries, such as Kay Francis, Barbara Stanwyck, and their ilk. It's unclear why. She was a very good actress, but I think in the end she didn't have the studio attention that some other actresses did.

Thanks to TCM, film buffs have a chance to see her. Here she is in "The Right to Romance" from 1933, also starring Robert Young and Nils Asther. Harding plays Peggy Simmons, a dedicated plastic surgeon (though I swear it said Peggy Simmons, D.D.S. - isn't that some sort of dentist?) who is also generous and good-hearted. But she doesn't feel much like a woman, working all of the time and seeing the years fly by.

She decides to go on a break, where she dresses beautifully, does her hair, and heads for a resort area. There, she meets one of her patient's sons, whom she has met before, Bobby (Robert Young). He is suddenly very flirtatious and wanting to spend time with her.

Peggy returns to her old life and patients, but Bobby shows up and proposes. She accepts, seemingly unaware that her colleague (Nils Asther) is in love with her.

The marriage isn't happy - Bobby isn't ready to settle down, and Peggy finds that she is miserable.

Short, very absorbing film thanks to the actors. It's interesting - in '40s films, a woman had a career or a marriage, not both, and if she had a career, she was WITHOUT A MAN TO CALL HER OWN and therefore miserable.

The '30s films were different - go figure. Peggy is burned out initially but, without giving the ending away, we're not given the impression that she's chucking her career entirely.

Harding was theater-trained, so she had the mid-American (i.e. fake British) speech spoken by Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, and others. She was a strong actress, and her striking looks matched.

Entertaining.

Beautiful cosmetic surgeon Ann Harding (as Margaret "Peggy" Simmons) feels her biological clock ticking away. "The years are going so fast," she tells her somber nun, "Am I, after all, just a giddy woman at heart?" Ms. Harding takes a leave of absence from work and goes from staid Manhattan doctor to fun-loving Los Angeles sophisticate. She cuts down on smoking and has a whirlwind romance with wealthy playboy Robert Young (as Bobby Preble). You should expect their chance for happiness will be threatened... This Harding vehicle always leaves you wondering why she is so infatuated with Mr. Young while ignoring magnetic Nils Asther (as Helmuth "Heppie" Heppling), which may be the point.

**** The Right to Romance (11/17/33) Alfred Santell ~ Ann Harding, Robert Young, Nils Asther, Sari Maritza

Margaret Simmons (Ann Harding) is a very able and busy plastic surgeon. Some of her cases are women who just want to be better or younger looking, others are serious accident victims. When she meets the son of a former patient, Bobby Preble (Robert Young), he mentions his surprise at the doctor being a woman and then he mentions that he smells something peculiar, and she mentions that it is ether - she just came from the OR. So, feeling like she has lost herself and her femininity in her profession, she takes a leave of absence to just enjoy life.

While she is in California, she runs into Bobby again. Or I should say that he almost collides with her. He's acting like a complete jerk, doing loops in his plane and drinking heavily. He almost runs into the entire cafe where she is dining. When Bobby sees Margaret not in her scrubs, he falls for her, wines and dines her, and then follows her back to New York and proposes. They marry on the spur of the moment - even though a big wedding has somehow been inexplicably arranged - and settle down to normal married life. But just because you can take the boy out of the night life doesn't mean you can take the night life out of the boy. Complications ensue.

This film was a bit of a mess. There is a loud soundtrack through the first half that often obscures dialogue, which was something most films didn't do after about 1930. Then the film suddenly is completely devoid of soundtrack for the second half.

Robert Young was a rather neutral looking fellow, so he could play honest forthright characters, or victims of circumstance, or a completely immature if well-meaning cad like he is here. But even though this was the precode era I was just not expecting that ending. It was as if to say that everything Ann Harding's character has done over the past 70 minutes was a mistake, so back to the drawing board!

I give it a 5/10 because the plot overall is pretty unexpected.