Besuch zur Nacht

I had really only been exposed to Olivier's dramatic performances, and those were mostly much later films than *Divorce*. In this film, he is disarmed of his pomp and overconfidence by sassy Merle Oberon, and plays the flustered divorce attorney with great charm.

This was the first movie to be watched in my project to discover more about the career of Sir Laurence Olivier. I've seen many of his films. However after watching an interview with Dick Cavett, I've become more fascinated. I just started piling Olivier movies on to my watchlist on Amazon. Everyone knows Olivier's Shakespeare...but to see him in a romantic comedy? Never thought it existed. He, along with the entire cast, nailed it. The story, script, and direction are wonderful. Merle Oberon is an impish, mischievous delight, more than holding her own across from the man who is synonymous with the word Actor. Watch it by all means!

I loved the dialogue above all - the sharp and witty banter between British 'icons' Olivier and Oberon, and even the playful back and forth between Morton Selten as Lord Steele and H.B. Hallam as his long-suffering butler, Jeffries. Binnie Barnes was also superb as Lady Mere; her accent might have slipped, but she definitely had the right attitude for her character! The use of colour was also a plus, particularly with the wonderful outfits. I think Merle Oberon would have done better without the continuous close-ups - though she did have a certain magnetism, she doesn't quite hold up to such inspection - and Olivier was definitely better suited to the stage: indeed, that is probably where he thought he was, judging by the delivery of some of his character's lines. The improbability of the story aside, 'The Divorce of Lady X' is a wry 'snapshot' of its era: gender, class, morality - even weather (it's very hard to believe that London had smog so bad that people were unable to travel, but it did happen).

"The Divorce of Lady X" is a lovely color film produced by Alexander Korda--a man who had a great history producing films in the UK and US. However, compared to many of Korda's other great films, this one comes up a bit average. It has a great idea but something about it kept it from being a bit better.

The film begins in a horrible London fog. It's so foggy that folks can't get home and a hotel is totally booked. The last person to get a room, Everard (Laurence Olivier), is dead tired and miffed when the management asks him to share his suite since there are so many looking for rooms. Despite this, a very pushy and determined woman, Leslie (Merle Oberon), is able to finagle a bed in his room--and here is complications arise. He thinks she's a married woman and the next day, a man comes to hire him (as he's a barrister--that's a lawyer to us Americans) to sue his wife for divorce--and the woman the new client describes sounds EXACTLY like the woman who just spent the night with him! What's he to do? He's initially afraid that he's about to be named a co-respondent but later it's more complicated when he thinks that he's falling in love with this woman--a woman he thinks has been married four times already!

I nearly gave the movie a 7, so I did like it. However, sometimes I really thought they made Oberon's character too obnoxious and unlikable. Additionally, why Olivier's character would want to marry her is perplexing considering she's so obnoxious, manipulative AND he thinks she's been married many times already. Add to this a ridiculous courtroom scene at the very end, it just kept me wishing they'd edited or re-written the thing a bit.

This DIVORCE OF LADY X is the sort of film about misunderstandings among the upper crust of society that American audiences usually associate with someone like Norman Krasna, who wrote so many romantic comedies where someone assumed a different identity to keep the mistaken identity theme afloat for the duration of the plot. If I hadn't known better, I would have suspected he had a hand in this screenplay.

Here we have an early comedy from the U.K., courtesy of Alexander Korda, making use of three strip Technicolor--very low-key color apparently, at least judging from the rather poor Public Domain prints I've seen.

LAURENCE OLIVIER plays a barrister whose disdain for women is on a level with Professor Henry Higgins--he tolerates them until he falls in love with them. The joke here is that he is mistaken about the identity of MERLE OBERON, who gets even with him after finding out how rudely he treats women, by pretending to be the wife of RALPH RICHARDSON. He's hoodwinked by her until the very end when she realizes they share a mutual attraction.

It's amusing to watch Olivier and Oberon tackle these lightweight roles only a year before joining forces again for WUTHERING HEIGHTS. He has some very scathing comments to make about the opposite sex and plays his role with gusto. She's a bit more restrained in her role but together they show the kind of chemistry they would also get to display in the William Wyler film the following year.

This would have been more watchable if the color wasn't so badly in need of restoration.

Summing up: Amusing comedy of manners among British aristocracy.

P.S. - This is an update on my review of the film. Saw it today in brightly restored Technicolor which at least adds to the film's entertainment value, though the script is the main trouble. But TCM featured it in pristine condition in color that was extremely washed out and primitive looking before. It's now seen to advantage and adds a great deal of interest to viewing it as it was originally intended.