The Shining Hour

Joan Crawford disrupts a family in "The Shining Hour," a 1938 film also starring Melvyn Douglas, Margaret Sullavan, Robert Young, and Fay Bainter.

Crawford is Olivia Reilly, a New York City dancer who works in a nightclub with a partner doing an act sort of modeled on Astaire and Rogers though it's clearly down several levels.

Melvyn Douglas is Henry Linden, a gentleman farmer who wants to take her away from all this to Wisconsin, and sick of her present life, she marries him. Arriving on the farm, she finds herself hated by Henry's sister, Hannah (Bainter), lusted after by Henry's brother David (Young) and loved and envied by David's wife Judy (Sullavan).

Before long, David is making overt passes, Henry has figured out David is in love with his wife, and in spite of herself, Judy begins to suspect the same thing.

This film is a little overdone, as it seems like the tension in the house never lets up. David always looks miserable, Judy always looks nervous, Olivia is always trying to be nice except when she's trading barbs with Hannah, and Hannah is nasty.

How any of them stood one another for more than ten minutes is a miracle. We are never allowed to see any happiness.

Also, the entire end of the film is a mess -- Judy takes a ridiculous step to make everything right, but it all goes in the opposite direction.

The most absurd part of the whole film, without giving anything away, is that one of the characters ends up wearing bandages - covering their nose and mouth with only the eyes showing. Now, how is anyone supposed to breathe like that? How did the actor breathe, in fact?

Joan Crawford looks beautiful and is very good in her role as a city slicker who wants to love her husband and environment but is finding it difficult.

Tall, elegant Melvyn Douglas, who thirty years later would emerge as one of the truly great actors in cinema, does a wonderful job as the even-tempered one of the family. For so many years, he played the family friend, the family lawyer, the other man - how, with all that magnificent talent, did he ever stand it?

Robert Young is fine as David, though Margaret Sullavan is so nice and sweet and so much in love with him that he's somewhat unlikable for coming on to Olivia. As the vicious Hannah, Fay Bainter is effective, though I'd have thrown her out of the house.

All in all, it's just okay.

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.

Joan shined in-spite of the poor writing. Her performance and character was the only fully formed one. Definitely worth watching but be prepared for whiplash. The speed racer juggling relationships leave one asking, how did that happen. It's really too bad they didn't spend more time with character development. It would have been possibly an Oscar nominated movie. I understand better why Crawford was considered a star after she put with the poor writing in this movie. I know I've been critical of this movie but it really is worth seeing Crawford's performance. She is honest and true to her acting craft.

The performances in this film are adequate, with standout performances by Margaret Sullivan and Fay Bainter. It is the writing that fell short.

The romance and sexual tension are never fleshed out. In fact, most of it is unbelievable. The film is still entertaining but only because of star power and the snide remarks Bainter flings at Crawford.

Had this not been made during the production code they might have been able to explore the seamier side of it. The way it is handled you just don't care about any of the relationships in the film.

Hattie McDaniel is always a delight to see and always leaves you wanting more.

Contrary to most of the opinions I read here, I did not find this film "soapy." I found it, refreshingly, a film for adults. For me, that's all too rare. I think it's about what relationship is, what love is and isn't, and most of all about the experience it takes and the resulting wisdom to build relationship beyond an adolescent understanding of love and attraction. And the great value of the self-knowledge that results. For me, that adult perspective was so refreshing and so rare that it beats out every other consideration. (Especially given the idiotic popular fare we're used to these days which substitutes a junior high school age cynicism for the difficult work of love.) Along with, say, "Dodsworth," for some reason Hollywood in this period was capable of some genuinely mature work for adults. The popular culture could use a little more. With Ogden Nash in the writing credits, I shouldn't be surprised at what I found valuable in this film.