The Bride Walks Out

This is kind of a movie version of an I Love Lucy episode - It's the trials & tribulations of a couple, accompanied by their sidekicks, the other married couple. The girls stick together, the guys stick together. Then Robert Young walks in to "help", but things get all mixed up. Clever script. Helen Broderick plays the same sarcastic, older but wiser friend that sticks by the young bride when things get tough that she played so many times (Father takes a bride, Smartest Girl in Town, Top Hat) Robert Young is the dashing interloper that really does want to help out, but just makes things worse. Ned Sparks is a riot, always muttering things under his breath, the poor suffering husband with a cigar hanging out the corner of his mouth. This movie makes light of some of those old fashioned sexist ideas,(domestic violence, man/wife roles) so may offend some, but then it was made for a different time. Seems to be a remake of "Ten Cents a Dance" from 1931, which also starred B. Stanwyck. I have tried to find the video for sale, have not had luck as of yet.

Engineer Gene Raymond gets a new job that pays all of $35 a week, so he gets married to dress model Barbara Stanwyck and makes her quit her $50-a-week job. But they can't make a go on his salary. But there's Robert Young, son of a rich department store owner standing by to scoop up the lady.

It's typical of the romantic comedies that RKO was releasing at this juncture, with a serious problem flooded under the fluffy goo of attractive leads and lots of nutty supporting comics to offer the laughs. There's Ned Sparks and Helen Broderick as their married pals; Willie Best, Billy Gilbert, and Hattie MacDaniels; Irving Bacon; Fred Kelsey as a cop, of course; Charles Lane looking only about 50; and the usual assortment of people who can be counted on to speak a serious or funny line well. It's the sort of bread-and-butter picture that might show a profit, or simply account for some of the fixed costs of the studio and make the ones that showed a profit more profitable.

Comparing this film to THE PALM BEACH STORY is an exercise in ignorance. It's OK, but lacking in wit and spark. If anything, it's yet another example of how films of this era shot down women who had hopes of making something of their lives. For that, it is perhaps worth seeing. If you're looking for a sparkling, witty comedy, move on. Fans of Stanwyck will find her at her best, as always...but Gene Reynolds, as always, brings things to a crashing halt. Helen Broderick is at her wise-cracking best, but it's not really good enough to save what is basically a formulaic, Depression-era comedy...one with an all-too-familiar ending. Ho-hum, and all that.

This is a very dated story about two people in love, Barbara Stanwyck and Gene Raymond, and their marital problems. Stanwyck plays a model who came from a poor home, and she doesn't want to give up her $50 a week job and live on only Raymond's $35/week salary. He talks her into it anyway, though she screams all the way down the aisle. Soon she finds herself in money trouble and gets involved with a playboy, Robert Young. To ease her financial problems, she works on the sly.

The performances are delightful, but it's a slim story and then there's the business of this guy not wanting his wife to work. I normally don't have a problem watching films in the context of their times, but in this case, the husband seemed unreasonable to me. Ned Sparks and Helen Broderick are hilarious. Stanwyck is always fresh and sincere. Gene Raymond is attractive, but I've always failed to see why he was so important to MGM that Mayer forced Jeannette Macdonald to marry him. The film didn't really hold my interest, but Stanwyck is always worth seeing.

Bride Walks Out, The (1936)

** (out of 4)

Disappointing film from RKO has Barbara Stanwyck playing fashion model Carolyn who is courted by a blue collar working man (Gene Raymond). The two are married and he forces her to quit her job as he thinks they can survive on his $35-a-week paycheck but soon she goes to work behind his back and is courted by a rich man (Robert Young) who is in love with her. THE BRIDE WALKS OUT starts off pretty flat and just continues to go downhill from there. Despite the good cast there's really no life in this comedy-drama for a number of reasons but the biggest has to be the lack of chemistry between Stanwyck and Raymond. Not for a second did they feel like a real married couple and throughout the movie I had a hard time believing these two people would ever actually be together. Another problem is the screenplay, which for some reason makes the husband out to be the dumbest man I've seen from any Hollywood film of the 1930s. I watch dozens, if not hundreds, of films from this era and for the life of me I was struggling to come up with a dumber male character. The film has a very sexist attitude about it, which goes against many of the roles Stanwyck played throughout the decade but there are several bits of dialogue where it's said that for a man to be "manly" that he should hit a woman. Add on more sexist stuff including the fact that he doesn't believe women should work and that he's constantly doing and saying one dumb thing after another, the viewer really can't help but hate the guy and want to see Stanwyck get away from him. The one good thing in the film is the chemistry between Stanwyck and Young but you'll be disappointed in how the screenplay plays this off in the end but what's an even bigger head-scratcher is that it's never really explained why Young becomes such a vital part in her life. Ned Sparks tries to add some comic relief and fails and film buffs will also enjoy seeing Hattie McDaniel and Billy Gilbert in small roles. You can also quickly see Willie Best at a court sequence but he's not given a single line of dialogue. This attractive cast might make fans tune in when the film is shown on TCM but you're bound to be disappointed.