Questa donna è mia

I adore Hedy Lamarr. I think she was vastly underrated as an actress during the 40s. She was the Nastassja Kinski of that era, and critics didn't take her seriously. Having said all that...this film is a BORE. When I watched it for the first time, I was shocked at the lack of continuity, not only in story, but in makeup and costumes. Hedy's makeup changes from shot to shot. So does hair length and style. Reason: This thing had so many writers and underwent so many stops and starts it's amazing they ever released it at all. Her "Lady of the Tropics" began filming AFTER this one began, yet it was released before "I Take This Woman." In fact, at the time, it was known in Hollywood as "I Re-Take This Woman." That should tell you something. I'm a Spencer Tracy fan as well, but he is AWFUL here. I've read in various film histories that he absolutely despised Hedy Lamarr, and that looks perfectly obvious on film. NO chemisty whatsoever. The story wanders around for reel after reel and finally just rolls to an end very strangely. I can't recommend this one at all.

With two Oscars already on his shelf (Boy's Town, Captains Courageous), Tracy looks lost here. And well he should, as this was a vehicle for promoting Hedy Lamarr. The interference by a major Hollywood producer resulted in three directors and 18 months of shooting. Naturally, a patchwork film like that wouldn't do well at the box office.

Tracy is a doctor in a downtown clinic that takes up with an uptown girl who is having men problems. He finds a diamond and steals it. But, he is out of his element.

Lamarr is glorious to look at and a fine actress, but this story just didn't wash and the ending is something Capra copied years later in It's a Wonderful Life. It was schmaltzy in both films.

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.

Adaptation of Charles MacArthur's short story "A New York Cinderella" has Spencer Tracy cast as a barrios doctor (so committed to his work that he spends his vacation doing medical research!) who saves Park Avenue beauty Hedy Lamarr from shipboard suicide. Once in New York City, she locates him (eating in a cafeteria!) and discovers his neighborhood hospice is the perfect place for her to recover and take stock of her life. Their eventual marriage (which appears platonic in nature, with barely a kiss between them) isn't fraught with many anxieties, and a subsequent move uptown seems to make them both happy, but the scenarists have invented a "former flame" for the woman who turns up at every restaurant and nightclub she goes to. This poor man is just a plot device (a bad one), unconvincingly written and only present to give the good doctor some doubts. Yet, if the movie goes out of its way to cause cracks in the marriage, it bends over backwards to give the two principals a happy ending (one that must be seen to be believed). It raises a happy tear or two, though the movie is so flimsily constructed and rudderless, it evaporates from memory before you can even recall the title. Tracy--playing both doctor and daddy to Lamarr--throws away much of his dialogue (charmingly), holding together most of the picture even as its fairy tale plotting takes the slow boat to China. **1/2 from ****

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.