Give Me Your Heart

I really loved George Brent and Kay Francis together, and I only wish they'd done more films as a team. This particular plot has had variations of it done time and again, but the difference in a mediocre film and a good one can often be the performances, as is the case here.

Kay plays Belinda Warren, a woman who is in love with a man (Patric Knowles) who is married to an invalid (Frieda Inescort). We only hear things from Belinda's point of view - she says she's in love, so we really have no idea what is going on in the mind of the young man. When Belinda finds that she is pregnant, she confides in her close friend "Tubbs" (Roland Young). He in turn talks to the young man's father, the kindly Lord Farrington (Henry Stephenson), who convinces Belinda that allowing his son and daughter to adopt her child is the best solution for all parties concerned.

Most of the story concerns Belinda after she gives the baby up and after she marries wealthy Jim Baker (George Brent) - we're not shown the courtship. Jim tries to be kind and cheery with Belinda, but this just seems to put her in an even more foul mood than normal, and she is already in a constant state of anxiety. She finds it hard to give her heart to Jim completely when she is simultaneously trying to block out thoughts of her son far away. It looks like the Baker marriage is headed for the rocks when Tubbs shows up out of nowhere and comes up with a plan to put things right.

I know this all sounds very conventional, but believe me it really sparkles on screen with more reality in attitudes than would be normal for a film made in 1936. There's also a cute little sideplot involving a romance that develops between Tubbs and Belinda's doctor. This and the pace work together to give this film heart without weighing it down with drippy melodrama.

Recommended as not the best thing Kay Francis ever did, but certainly worth watching if you get the chance.

Kay Francis glides through this most engaging soap opera in a succession of elegant Orry-Kelly creations in which everyone behaves well and director Archie Mayo manages adroitly to combine adultery and childbirth outside marriage without incurring the wrath of the Hays Office.

(I originally saw this film on TNT a quarter of a century ago and have affectionately recalled ever since the subplot involving the befriending by Roland Young as 'Tubbs' of Helen Flint as Dr.Cudahy, who he thereafter amiably addresses as 'Bones'.)

After a child-producing European affair, attractive socialite Kay Francis (as Belinda "Bill" aka "Linda" Warren) woefully returns to New York. On the train, she meets wealthy and attentive George Brent (as James "Jim" Baker). They are married, but Ms. Francis is haunted by her past. Francis' little secret adversely affects her relationship with Mr. Brent. Two years later, Francis' globe-trotting friend Roland Young (as Edward "Tubbs" Barron) arranges for Francis and her husband to meet former lover Patric Knowles (as Robert "Bob" Melford), his wife Frieda Inescort (as Rosamond Melford), and their collective son...

Though faltering as Florence Nightingale in "The White Angel" (1936), Francis reasserts some box office appeal by treading more familiar waters; she attained a respectable #15 position for the year 1936, in the annual exhibitors' poll conducted for "Boxoffice" magazine...

Tailor-made for Francis, this short-lived Broadway production (by Jay Mallory) revisits a tried and true story. The subjects are treated with more respect than was prevalent at the time, although it's not ground-breaking. Best of the episodic scenes is the confrontation between husbands and wives. The short, less starry performances of Mr. Knowles and Ms. Inescort are especially effective. The subplot involving Mr. Hobbes' interest in alcohol and doctor Helen Flint (as Florence "Bones" Cudahy) is strange and unsatisfying. Veteran actors like Henry Stephenson add credence.

***** Give Me Your Heart (9/17/36) Archie Mayo ~ Kay Francis, George Brent, Roland Young, Patric Knowles

Who else but Kay Francis has the ability to draw viewers into a contrived bit of make-believe and have it seem like a genuine Shakespearean tragedy? There is a scene in this picture where she glimpses her son's picture, after having given him up, that could make a stone cry. Miss Francis' talents for the melodramatic combine nicely with Roland Young's sardonic wit and with Frieda Inescort's gentle humility. Meanwhile, George Brent is on hand as the love interest, as he is in so many of the actress' pictures. His presence helps to balance the tears with just the right amount of testosterone and sex appeal.

This is a wonderful example of Classic Hollywood soap opera with the elegant Kay Francis giving a truly heartfelt performance. Kay appears (not too convincingly at first, but she gets much better as the movie goes along) as a young, naive English girl who becomes impregnated by a titled gentleman (Patrick Knowles). He, being the callow character he is, already has an invalid wife (beautifully played by Freida Inescourt) who cannot bear a child. Kay allows his aristocratic family "adopt" her baby and she runs off to America to forget. Being a classic weeper, she of course does not forget, even though she is married to George Brent (who really is pretty good here). Eventually, a faithful friend (Roland Young who enlivens the proceedings with needed humor) conspire to bring closure to her heartache by bring the real mother and "adopted mother" together for a tearful, yet satisfying, ending.

It plays a lot better on film than it does in print and I'm sure I am not doing it justice. All I know is that it is joyously irresistible and very moving. Kay Francis received a lot of mixed reviews for her performance at that time, but I think that she is splendid- truly an underrated actress from that period and worthy of watching!