La forza dell'amore

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.

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.

If you can get passed the far-outdated trappings (newlyweds in separate beds, and a wife who is forced to give up her well-paying job to live on her husband's measly salary), there are some laughs to be had in this charming romantic comedy from RKO. Screenwriters P.J. Wolfson and Philip G. Epstein, working from a story by Howard Emmett Rogers, manage to throw in some funny, sneaky little laugh lines, and the supporting characters add a great deal of bounce, including sidekick Ned Sparks (who talks like a Myna Bird) and Hattie McDaniel(s) as a sassy cook. The bride (Barbara Stanwyck, who never disappoints) does indeed walk out--into the arms of a millionaire!--and the way the plot is resolved is amusing and clever. **1/2 from ****

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.

... in a production that is an OK time passer but is based on entirely archaic ideas on the subject of marriage. If I'm going to watch a film from 1936, I guess I should be prepared to deal with the values of 1936, but this is just too much.

Mike Martin (Gene Raymond) is an engineer who basically nags model and long-time girlfriend Carolyn (Barbara Stanwyck) into marrying him. The arguments begin at their quickie civil marriage ceremony and continue as Mike's estimate that $35 a week is enough for them to get by on is incorrect. Plus no wife of his is going to work! It's a Martin tradition. Before this film is over I felt like if it was a Martin tradition to walk a tightrope strung between high rises on your 30th birthday Mike would be up there doing it. He's not exactly a deep thinker.

Meanwhile, Carolyn is stuck making Mike's maxims work. Mike gets to live the dream of supporting a wife that doesn't work, but his dream is really a mirage. Carolyn is the one that actually deals with overdue bills and the bill collectors coming to the door threatening repossession. After their furniture is repossessed and is only returned because wealthy friend Hugh McKenzie (Robert Young) pays the amount due - all happening before Mike gets home and thus without his knowledge - Carolyn decides to go to work so their budget will stretch and hide the fact from Mike. When Mike beats Carolyn home one day and discovers the truth, it is actually the knuckle-dragging groom that walks out.

All through the film there is the involvement of wealthy Hugh, who loves Carolyn but wants her to be happy whatever she decides. Let me tell you, Robert Young does not play a drunk well at all. In fact he's quite annoying as drunken partying Hugh. But when he plays a sober Hugh he's a stark and pleasant contrast to the Neanderthal Mike.

Now this is a 1936 production code era romance, so you know it's going to work itself out in some conventional way already, so I'll just let you watch and find out how that happens.

I give this five stars because Barbara Stanwyck makes almost any film watchable, plus there are the hilarious antics of Ned Sparks and Helen Broderick as Paul and Mattie Dodson, friends of the couple who don't seem to like each other at all and can't even remember what town in which they were married. When Carolyn asks them why they get married in the first place they say "because it was raining", whatever that means.

I would consider this film a take it or leave it proposition.