Holy Matrimony

Monty Woolley plays Britain's most distinguished artist who lives the life of a recluse in the jungle with his valet. When the valet dies, Woolley assumes his identity to continue a life of peace and becomes wedded to Gracie Fields. All is bliss.....for a while.

Utterly charming and devilishly witty. Woolley is terrific as Field's adoring husband but has a razor sharp tongue for everyone else. The couple go very well together and their relationship comes across as very sweet and totally believable. The strength here though is the script which is full of caustic one liners and enjoyable characters for Woolley to let rip at.

"Holy Matrimony" is a wonderful comedy drama starring Monty Woolley as Priam Farll and Gracie Fields as Alice Chalice. With a name like the latter, one wonders if it was just picked for a good laugh or if there might have been some other inside reason of the author or screen writer.

Wooley and Fields only made two movies together, but they are both very good comedies, and with a little satire. The other film, "Molly and Me," came two years later. There is a similarity in the two characters that Fields plays. She takes charge when needed, and gets Woolley's characters out of trouble. The later film is more comical, and Fields is the main character. She is billed ahead of Woolley, where Woolley has the top billing here as the main character.

The plot of this 20th Century Fox film is very good, and probably somewhat original for its day. It's based on a 1908 novel by British author Arnold Bennett, titled "Buried Alive." The idea of switching identities with a dead person has been used a few times in movies - some comedies and some other genres. It was used in another film being made by RKO at the same time as this one. "Mr. Lucky" starred Cary Grant and Laraine Day. RKO was filming that comedy romance and caper story while 20th Century Fox was filming this movie.

Woolley and Fields dominate this film in their presence and dialog, but some top supporting actors of the day contribute to the humor in their lesser roles. Eric Blore is Henry Leek, whose name Farll will go by after Leek dies of pneumonia. Alan Mowbray, Una O'Connor and Franklin Pangborn are familiar faces among the supporting cast.

Priam Farll has been a famous British painter who has lived abroad for 25 years, and whom no one would recognize. When his art dealer summons him to England to be knighted by the king, he can't refuse. He and his valet, Henry Leek (played by Eric Blore) pack up and depart Fiji for London. But Leek takes ill on the ocean voyage and shortly after they arrive in London he dies of double pneumonia. The doctor fills out the death certificate, assuming that the dead man is the famous painter. Farll, who always has disdained the press and public spotlight, seizes upon the idea to assume Leek's identity. He later meets Alice Chalice, to whom Leek had proposed, and she takes him for Leek because he had sent her a photo of the two men and didn't identify himself in the picture.

Some very funny scenes ensue. One is when the first Mrs. Leek shows up (Una O'Connor) with her three sons. Another is when the king shows up to pay respects to the deceased Leek who is supposed to be Farll. And another is when the famous painter is to be buried with public ceremony at Westminster Abbey. The comedy climax comes in a very funny scene with some nice jabs as the British courts. Farll has two moles on his left shoulder which he refuses to expose to prove his real identity.

But Alice Chalice, aka Mrs. Leek but now Mrs. Farll comes to the rescue and there's a happy ending because "Home is Where the Heart Is," as her homemade crocheted picture reads. During the court case, the London newspapers carry all sorts of flouting headlines. One reads, "Lloyds of London offering odds of 2-1 no moles." Another headline reads, "American claims record 105 moles." Another reads, "Farll's moles under scrutiny."

Woolley and Fields both had careers on stage and screen. He had the longer period of filmmaking and played on Broadway and TV. Fields was also a singer who passed on a suggestion that she sing opera. Instead, she sang and performed in dance halls and on stage. She was an intrepid entertainer of Allied forces during World War II in Europe, Australia and the South Pacific.

This film is one of several in which the character Fields plays is named Gracie or Grace. There are some very funny scenes here with appropriate dialog, mostly by Woolley. Here are some favorite lines.

Henry Leek, "Which shall I lay out for your trip sir - your trousers or your knickerbockers?"

Doctor Caswell, "Well, there's no doubt about it. The sea air's the most dangerous thing on earth."

Henry Leek, "I'm afraid, sir, I have a confession or two to make." Priam Farll: Don't be a fool. Never make a confession until you actually feel rigor mortis setting in. You might recover." Leek, "No, this time I'm done for. I know." Farll, "Nevertheless, I don't want to hear it. Why, I haven't the slightest doubt that you are a first-rate scoundrel at heart. If you don't mind my saying so, you're such a shady-looking individual."

Doctor Caswell, "Oh, didn't I read somewhere where he ran away from England some years ago to marry a Fiji witch or something?" Priam Farll (as Henry Lee), "It was far more likely sir, that he ran away from England years ago to escape your wife." Doctor, "Great Scott, did he know her?" Farll, "I speak, of course, sir, in hyperbole."

Mourner/Spectator at Westminster Abbey (Cyril Ring, uncredited), "I say, governor, who's being buried?" Priam Farll, "Me." Spectator, "Funny, eh?"

Priam Farll, "Now, how on earth could a brewery have financial trouble? Look at the beer people drink - buckets of it. Why, I myself must have put away several hundred thousand gallons of it." Alice Chalice, "That's what father used to say. Put your faith in an Englishman's thirst is as gold in the bank, he says."

Priam Farll (as Henry Leek), "Leek, sir, Henry Wadsworth Leek."

Priam Farll, another time as Leek, "Leek, sir, Henry Greenleaf Leek."

I found this on YT by searching Monty Wooley. Unknown to me, the revelation is Gracie Fields, an established stage actress with few screen roles. John Stahl and Nunnally Johnson were golden age storytellers cranking out a couple solid films a year. Surprised there are no remakes.

When talking about the great writers of Great Britain from 1880 - 1940, one thinks of Wilde, Shaw, Wells, James, Conrad, Hardy, Kipling, Stevenson - maybe Conan Doyle, Beerbohm, Chesterton. There is one name that was once fully worthy of being listed in this group, but this person has sort of vanished (except for one novel) from public attention. The writer was Arnold Bennett. In his day novels like CLAYHANGER, RICEYMAN STEPS, THE CARD, and BURIED ALIVE were known around the English-speaking world. Bennett was the chronicler of the "Five Town" area of London, where his main fiction characters (usually lower or blue-collar types) came from - for Bennett came from that area originally. In the film THE CARD (with Alec Guinness and Glynnis John) there is a statement at the start that mentions the Five-Towns.

But after Bennett died in 1931, his readership disappeared. The sole exception was THE OLD WIVES TALE, a grown-up view of the unsuccessful married lives of two sisters. The others were basically forgotten.

Aside from Guinness's THE CARD, the only other Bennett novel to reach the screen was BURIED ALIVE, made twice into sound films (in 1933 with Roland Young and Lillian Gish, and in this 1943 film, HOLY MATRIMONY). It is a wonderful comedy, and gave Monty Wooley another specialized film to give his patented irascibility full flower. Here he plays Priam Farli, the leading English painter of his day, who returns from the South Seas to be knighted, only to find that his dead valet (Eric Blore) is mistakenly identified as him. The valet is buried in Westminster Abbey (with King Edward VII in attendance) while Wooley watches from the public benchs. Wooley sets up a house, under his valet's name, and hires Gracie Fields as his housekeeper. Eventually they fall in love and marry. But money is running out, and Fields (noting her husband's artistic abilities) sells several to a dealer (Laird Cregar). Cregar recognizes them as Farli's pictures and sells them very quickly. But one of the buyers finds that the picture she bought was of an incident that happened after Farli died. Cregar is sued, and confronts Wooley. Eventually it boils down to a second legal problem: that Wooley finds his valet was married before, and never got a divorce. Confronted with bigamy charges (the first wife, Una O'Connor, can't recognize Wooley is her husband or not), Wooley is finally confronted with the only way of identifying himself as Farli or the Valet - by physical means that he opposes revealing.

All the performances are wonderful, led by Wooley and Fields (who would do a second film, MOLLY AND ME, in a year). Cregar's Clive Oxford again showed he could play comedy (possibly even more subtlety than we think - Hector Arce's biography of Tyrone Power mentions that Power noticed that his friend Cregar coughed in a suggestive manner as though to suggest that Oxford was a homosexual who disapproved of his secretary's preening herself). Even George Zucco, normally a master of film menace, here managed to portray a prosecuting barrister doing slow burn after slow burn when dealing with the irrascible Wooley in court. Altogether a grand show. And a good place to go in order to get reacquainted with a forgotten literary master.

This gentle and beautiful comedy has a tone and mood uniquely its own. It is so soft and so gentle that it seems to be made of liquid, and with such a great cast it is a delicious liquid. Monty Woolley and Gracie Fields are wonderful together - they are both such warm and truthful performers. And the entire supporting cast is superb. The script is strong, and the direction finely-tuned. A truly lovely picture.