I Take This Woman

Always enjoy pictures starring Hedy Lamarr, (Georgi Gragore Decker) who is a woman in love with a man who is married and Georgi is sailing on a ship and decides to take her life and jump over board and is saved by a Dr. Karl Decker, (Spencer Tracy). Georgi is very grateful to Dr. Karl for saving her life and they both become very attracted to each other, however, Georgi has been a model for some very rich clients and has some very rich people who like her very much. Dr. Karl Decker is a doctor who works in a clinic that deals with the poor and is loved by the average simple people. Karl asks Georgi to marry him and this is when the story becomes very interesting which turns into quite a romantic film story. Enjoy.

I liked this movie; it's one of those sentimental movies I like to watch late at night. The reason this film works is Hedy Lamarr. She is a jewel. Naive and vulnerable, she makes bland look exotic. The plot is classic Hollywood melodrama. Spencer Tracy plays the fatherly role he often plays. Their chemistry together is questionable. But I think the key to the romance of this movie is the portrayal of each character's individual experience of love and infatuation, and how obsessive love is not about the relationship but how each person feels. For this reason Tracy and Lamarr's purported disconnect off the set may work to the film's advantage.

One can become easily lost within this film. I did. I found myself caring for these characters and hoping that, as the film wore on, there weren't any really bad turns to be taken. Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr were exquisite together. Tracy did everything one would expect, but it was Lamarr's performance that was truly refreshing. The combination of "old world" style and young girl cuteness was put forth effortlessly. She was interesting and a joy to watch. In fact, the movie was very enjoyable. There are some scenes, when viewed through today's eyes, standards, one cringes. The problem is the movie was made in 1939. Things and views were different then, just as they will be 60 years from now.

The film is pleasant enough, with Tracy and Laraine Day. But Hedy, was a jewel. That opening scene where she is in her satin gown, with that perfect figure, contemplating suicide, was really a sight. I squirmed when Tracy had to sock that gorgeous puss, in order to prevent her suicide, as if anyone would want to disfigure that face. Being Italian, when she had to speak it to a distraught Italian women, the words were very authentic. I thought she was really Italian, until later I found out she mastered 6 languages. No wonder she had the brains to invent that product for guiding torpedo's during the war, and now put to use in cell phones. Some reviewers here made comments that Tracy and Lamarr didn't get along...that is not true. In fact, they made 2 other movies together after this. If there was a problem, Tracy had enough clout to tell MGM, he would not make another movie with Lamarr. The word got around that Hedy was new to American movie making, and also, new to the English language. Read Chas. Boyer bio where it is said that there were problems with her English in "Algiers", so they limited her dialogue. But as we all know, Hedy mastered the language as well as 5 others... .but the problem with Tracy was that she couldn't grasp Tracy's mumbling and fast talking as he has shown in so many of his movies. Imagine if she had to appear with Brando, the king of mumblers. There is a candid photo of them together during recess of making "Tortilla Flat"...a very intimate scene...on Ebay. See this movie for the jeweled Hedy.

Hedy Lamarr is married to Spencer Tracy, but does her heart really belong to another? This is the big question in "I Take This Woman" which boasts a great cast that includes Verree Teasdale, Laraine Day, Louis Calhern, Paul Cavanaugh, and Kent Taylor. Hedy is from the upper class and when her affair with a married man (Taylor) goes sour, she tries to commit suicide on board ship and Tracy, a doctor returning from research in the Yucatan, saves her. Not surprisingly, he also falls madly in love with her. Not too long afterward, they're married, though Tracy realizes that she's still in love with her married, uptown boyfriend. She works with him in his downtown clinic and they're very happy - until the "uptown" life beckons both of them.

What can be said about Hedy - she's exquisitely beautiful, charming, and a natural actress who is excellent in the film. Though one of the comments was that Tracy came off as overly naive and a fool, I thought he was wonderful as a warm and good man. If he acts exuberantly in love, the character is just that. He's an unmarried, lonely man devoted to his work as a doctor and researcher. He meets a dream woman whom he describes as "something you'd see in a jeweler's window on black velvet - you just look and walk by" - and she agrees to marry him. How should he have acted? I loved the remark by one of the patients: "Is that your wife? What did you do, dope her?" The two make a charming couple though it's hard to watch anyone but Hedy when she's on screen.

Laraine Day plays the troubled daughter of Paul Cavanaugh - it's a small role but pivotal to the plot. The best supporting role and performance comes from Verree Teasdale, who plays Lamarr's best friend - she's a delight, popping off Charles Macarthur's witticisms with no problem.

A very enjoyable and heartwarming film. Cynics need not apply.