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.

... 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.

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.

One of Barbara Stanwyck's lesser efforts, The Bride Walks Out gets in a few jabs about chauvinistic pride but with little velocity behind its screwball intent it never reaches home plate.

Mike and Carolyn get hitched and he immediately puts his foot down about her working outside the home. As the bills mount she takes a job on the side to stem the tide of debt collectors but he finds out and the couple split. Miserable without each other they shakily attempt to reconcile.

Save for the abrasive Gene Raymond as Mike, Bride fields a decent enough acting squad with Babs, Robert Young as a well heeled interloper and a broad comic support line of Ned Sparks, Helen Broderick, Hattie Mc Daniel and Billy Gilbert. But lightweight director Leigh Jason fails to get cast or tempo out of its lethargy and the Bride Walks Out deserves one itself.