Marriage Is a Private Affair

The makers of this film had a premise: a woman whose childhood makes her a rather flakey person, a bit unsure of herself, picks one of her many suitors just to see if she can. But from there, the movie forgets drama. Why should she come to embrace marriage? It's not the birth of her son. It's not any one thing that happens to her. There's no plot catalyst in this movie, no psychological edge. It's more like a soap opera, where the characters change for no particular reason.

this is truly a collectors item. turner is at her most beautiful, all baby doll pout and velvet sincerity. production values are high. its a cult film that merits rediscovery. a big hit in 1944, it grossed 2 million at the box office, in the days when a hit was really a hit. audiences loved lana in her dimpled heyday and this film screens like a valentine to her sensuality. don't miss it. they don't make stars like lana anymore. gore vidal is on record as saying that he saw this film while young and that it had an impact on him. he mentioned it years later in myra breckinridge. tennesse williams worked on an early draft of the screenplay, and privately referred to it as a celluloid brassiere for miss turner!

Lana Turner might have been a good actress, but her personal life was a mess. She was married seven times and none of them lasted very long. So, having her star in "Love is a Private Affair" is ironic indeed. The film seems inspired by her own life, as Theo (Turner) has been brought up by a spoiled and narcissistic mother (Natalie Schafer) who seems to get married about as often as most folks change their underwear! And, not surprisingly, Theo is ill-equipped for marriage. Only eventually does she realize that marriage is not about finding the perfect partner but about being able and mature enough to be married.

While this isn't a bad film and it is worth seeing, the film has two things working against it. First, having Turner star in a pro-marriage film is a bit ridiculous and today this sort of casting might make folks laugh. Second, and a more serious problem, is that the film takes a long time getting to Theo's sudden revelation and the happy ending. You know it's coming but the film seems to take forever getting there.

The product of a broken home who has been raised by her cynical, much-married mother, Lana Turner enters into the kind of hasty wartime marriage everyone in 1944 was being warned against. And the man she chooses is stable, romantic and old-fashioned. Uh-oh. This picture shows how 'women's films' and 'soap operas' could sometimes tackle modern life's most important moral and ethical situations. Turner's character wants to commit herself to her marriage but realizes she hasn't the experience or the emotional tools to be a good wife, nor does she have the example of her parents' happy marriage to follow. MARRIAGE IS A PRIVATE AFFAIR explores that dilemma and does it very entertainingly. Too bad Lana didn't take the film's theme to heart!

As the newlyweds, Turner and John Hodiak have a wonderful sensuality and seeming spontaneity together during the scenes that take place on their honeymoon as they are first getting to know each other. And the movie presents a very interesting moral complication when it introduces the threesome that are Hodiak's closest friends from childhood. Consisting of a married couple and their male pal, Hodiak idealizes them but Turner recognizes the sexual tensions that will eventually threaten that marriage. For those who assume that '40s films never dealt with sexual issues, this picture might be a refreshing surprise, especially since it came from MGM, Hollywood's most conservative studio.

And for those who generally think of Lana Turner's late films when you think of her at all, her work in this and other early '40s pictures might surprise you too. Looking ravishingly pretty with a lush but trim body, in these years Turner actually seems to look at and listen to her fellow actors, and speaks her lines with expression and emotion, a real contrast to her sluggish, lazy late work.

I liked it. I thought it portrayed the struggles which many of us have. Lana Turner's character is undecided in life about quite a few issues, particularly marriage, though she also seems to have certain ideal views of these subjects. The last half of the movie I thought had the plot thicken so that her ambivalence would indeed make her character get stretched to the testing point. Actually quite a few testing points occur: with longtime boyfriend, husband, girlfriend, etc. After seeing the wreckage in her life and those around her, she does reach some mature decisions.

While we each may not have the same marriage commitment problem this movie showed, we can nonetheless use it as metaphor for our other personal struggles.