El hombre que quise

Joan Bennett realizes there is a problem with "The Main I Married" in this 1940 film also starring Francis Lederer, Otto Kruger, Anna Sten, and Lloyd Nolan.

Bennett plays Carol Hoffman, an editor, happily married to a German, Eric Hoffman (Lederer), for 8 years. They have a son named Ricky (Johnny Russell) and live in New York City. In 1938, Eric learns that he needs to return to Germany to take care of some business concerning his father's factory, so Carol and Ricky come along.

Eric's feet no sooner touch Deutschland that he begins to take up the Nazi fervor, aided and abetted by an old friend, Greta (Sten). Carol is vocal about not liking what she sees, and Eric keeps telling her not to listen to propaganda.

Finally, Carol realizes the truth about her husband, and with the help of an American journalist covering Berlin (Nolan), she decides to leave Germany with Ricky.

Good movie, great cast, solid performances. I don't know what the atmosphere in 1938 was but somehow I don't think I would have been interested in a trip to Germany. And frankly, Carol had good dose of denial about Eric or she would have left shortly after they arrived.

Otto Kruger is excellent as Eric's father, who feels as if he's lived too long, and Sten gives a strong performance as the unlikable Nazi Freda. Lederer has long been a favorite actor of mine, and here he's handsome and charming as a man ultimately gripped by nationalism.

Bennett is a beautiful, glamorous American woman who realizes how bad things are, and she gives a strong performance, brave in her disapproval and determined not to expose her child to it.

Irving Pichel does a good job of directing, and there is actual footage of Germany in 1938 throughout the film.

The movie was released in August of 1940, so it was probably made after war was declared in Europe, which was in September 1939. The film The Mortal Storm, released in June 1940, talks of the German oppression but never mentions Jews or Nazis. It seems that the studio moguls wanted America to enter the war, and promoted the cause with the films they produced, becoming a little bolder with each film.

"Blockade" (1938), "Beasts of Berlin" (1939) and "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" (1939) were the earliest Hollywood films to openly attack the Nazis. Another anti-Nazi film, "The Mortal Storm" opened in June, 1940. This film opened on August 9th 1940. That appears to make it the fifth openly anti-Nazi film released in America. This one was perhaps that sharpest and most effective of the anti-Nazi films. "Blockade" was about the Spanish Civil War, "Beasts of Berlin" was censored and hardly seen, "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" was about Nazis in America, and "the Mortal Storm" was set in Germany in 1933 when the Nazis first came to power. "The Man I Married" is set in 1938 and talks about contemporary events taking place in Germany at the time the film was released.

It is about a rather likable upper middle-class young couple, Carol and Eric Hoffman (Joan Bennett and Francis Lederer) and their young son visiting Germany. While Eric dismisses the bad things he has heard about the Nazis as propaganda, Carol is open-minded, taking a wait and see attitude. The movie becomes a fascinating dialectical discussion on the pros and con of the regime, with Eric finding the new Germany quite to his liking and Carol becoming more and more horrified. The audience identifies strongly with Carol's position. That is what makes it so effective.

The movie sees the Nazis as a psychotic cult. It shows the horror of a family member being taken over by a cult. It is really the blueprint for many contemporary anti-cult movies.

In his generally perceptive review of the movie, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther praised the movie for its intelligence, restraint and entertainment value. He praised Lederer's acting and others like Lloyd Nolan, but surprisingly attacked Joan Bennett's acting, saying that she just "model dresses and expresses incredulity." This is entirely unfair. Bennett carries the movie on her shoulders and really expresses her horror and disgust at the Nazi's actions with subtlety and intelligence. She is quite believable in every scene.

For an intelligent and enjoyable anti-Nazi film, I highly recommend it.

The Man I Married released in 1940 has its plot set in 1938 after the Reich had taken Austria and Czechoslovakia and the world was waiting out its last year of peace. Joan Bennett stars with Francis Lederer who may have rehearsed for this role playing the title role in Confessions Of A Nazi Spy the year before.

Lederer is a German who had settled in America and married an American girl Bennett and they have a young son in Johnny Russell. They hear that his father Otto Kruger is getting on in years and his business in the old country is falling apart. He wants his son to return to the old country and help straighten things out.

So Lederer packs his family up and returns to Germany and he get enthralled with Hitler. He's taken with the fine industrial machine that the Nazi state has made and feels pride in his nationality. His father of the older generation is not so impressed. Bennett is frightened by her surroundings and she gains a sympathetic ear in correspondent Lloyd Nolan.

She's got more problems than that. Lederer and her have grown apart and he's taken up with a Third Reich true believer in Anna Sten. You remember that Samuel Goldwyn made three attempts to make her a star and couldn't sell her. A pity because in The Man I Married she really stands out as the fanatical Nazi woman. She'd have made a great Magda Goebbels in a film.

The Man I Married was also unique in that it tackled anti-Semitism in a very dramatic climax scene. Darryl F. Zanuck and 20th Century Fox deserve a lot of credit for making this most timely film in 1940.

This is one of those early prophetic films seeing through Nazism completely long before their actual madness was commonly known or even suspected. Joan Bennett is married to a German in New York who wants to return to Germany to see about his father's business (Otto Kruger in one of his best roles), where he turns into a definite Nazi, to the great shock of Joan Bennett. It's a very unpleasant film, you feel the creeping horrors of Nazism invading your being and life as you like Joan Bennett follow the revelations of the tale, but dramatically it's an ingenious film, carefully building up an almost unendurable suspense, to reach a climax in the wonderful final scene at home. It is very intelligently written, and you follow the arguments and developments with constantly increasing anxiety and thrill, and what's worse - films like this are pertinent still today, since the same sneaking danger of dictatorships is something that history always has seen the return of.

Carol Hoffman, an art critic, seems to be happily married to Eric; they lead a somewhat happy existence in New York. When they decide to pay a visit to Germany, she immediately notices the changes that had befallen that country in the eve of WWII. Her husband, though, finds all the changes to his liking, as he considers how advanced his homeland has become.

Eric becomes interested in the Nazi party because of his involvement with Frieda, an attractive woman who clearly thinks Hitler and his cohorts are in the right path to solve all their problems. Carol realizes to what extent the new system has played on Eric and decides to take their young son back to America. Her father in law is horrified by what he notices Eric is becoming, and he wants to set his hon straight about a little family secret the younger man is not aware of.

This film has some interesting aspects in that it points out how a totalitarian regime can be dangerous for a country. History proves how devastating the situation in Germany was. Director Irving Pichel guides the proceedings with his usual style to create a powerful melodrama.

Joan Bennett, who plays Carol, is one of the assets of the film. The other is Francis Lederer, who plays Eric, the man that is dazed by the Germany he suddenly discovers. Anna Sten is also effective as Frieda, the ambitious woman who is horrified at the end when she discovers the secret about Eric. Venerable Otto Kruger appears as the patriarch Henrich Hoffman, and Lloyd Nolan appears as the American reporter who befriends Carol and warns her about the impending changes in Germany.

The film will not disappoint.