Le parfait accord

American expatriate Gloria Swanson is living it up pretty good and meets up with society playboy Laurence Olivier and the two fall in love as it were and get married. But both are used to high living and going their own way. So a Perfect Understanding is reached whereby they do just that and they vow never to quarrel.

Well that's easier said than done. And Larry heads off to the continent and the Riviera as he always does partying hearty. Gloria prepares home and hearth. Larry however has mantrap Nora Swinburne chasing him and when Gloria hears about she rebounds and right there is good old John Halliday to catch her.

Gloria Swanson as it turned out had a great singing voice and at the closing credits gets to sing a song with the rather ungainly title I Love You So Much I Hate You. Good voice, mediocre song, but she probably had it tacked on to a mediocre film for those who remembered her singing Love Your Magic Spell Is Everywhere from The Trespasser.

As for Olivier, up to now I had only seen one of his films before As You Like It. I'm not as hard as he is on himself when he was widely quoted as saying that William Wyler taught him the art of acting on film and that everything he did before Wuthering Heights was garbage. This second one I saw though would validate what he said.

Quite frankly the lives of these society twits got about as much interest from me in the 21st century as it did when it was shown in Depression UK and USA. Word of mouth made the public stay away in droves. And the public is always right.

That's the song Gloria sings over the closing credits; the reverse could be emblematic of the film, a trying-to-be-chic trifle that is nonetheless amusing in its stilted sophistication and odd cinematography. Gloria and Olivier swan about modern London--she's an American interior decorator, he appears to be independently wealthy--and do some rather pre-Code making out before deciding to marry. Misunderstandings quickly pile up as each, though nominally terribly terribly in love with each other, contemplate extramarital affairs. There's also intrigue about his suspicion that she's carrying someone else's child--it's far too racy to have been made in the U.S. at the time, and was filmed in Britain by Gloria's production company. The dialogue strains to be Somerset Maugham witty and the supporting cast is nothing special, though Miles Malleson has a nice bit. Gloria is certainly glamorous and good at eye-batting, and Olivier, playing a spoiled bachelor it's hard to root for, has some charm. Also fun is the hilariously overemphatic musical scoring--every comma seems to be accentuated with a crescendo. Not much of a movie, but an interesting look at two stars at uncomfortable times in their film careers.

Perfect Understanding (1933)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

With her star quality fading, Gloria Swanson went to England to produce this melodrama, which when released would just harm her career even more as it failed with both fans and critics. Judy (Swanson) and Nicholas (Laurence Olivier) agree to get married with the "perfect understanding" that they never argue or disagree. All goes as planned until Nicholas takes a trip to Cannes where he falls for another woman. PERFECT UNDERSTANDING is the perfect example of legends doing an awful film. There's really no doubt about it but this thing is just deadly dull from the word go and it never picks up any steam. It's easy to see why the movie was such a disaster when it was originally released but the most confusing thing is why Swanson decided to produce this herself and in England. I mean, this type of melodrama was flowing from every small and major studio in America so going to England really didn't do anything to improve the film. Even worse is that we have so many boring dialogue scenes that just drag everything out that the viewer will be wanting to stick sharp knives in their eyes. Things don't get any better once Olivier does the cheating as we get some pretty boring situations leading to a finale, which is just downright awful. It seems the film wants to return to Swanson's glory silent days because the picture really does look and feel like a silent at times but it's done in such a way that the entire thing just seems old-fashioned and it just doesn't work with the dialogue. Swanson is good in her role but sadly she's not given too much to do. Olivier is excellent in his part but one wishes the great performance was going towards a better cause. PERFECT UNDERSTANDING had pretty much been forgotten for over seven decades until it was brought back up to the surface but sadly, only die-hard fans of the stars should even bother with it.

...from United Artists and director Cyril Gardner. Posh British society couple Judy (Gloria Swanson) and Nicholas (Laurence Olivier) decide to get married, but with a "perfect understanding" that they won't tie each other down, and allow the other to maintain their freedom. When Nicholas has a fling with an old flame, Judy spends the night with another man, and their open marriage is sorely tested.

By 1933, these "sophisticated open marriage" melodramas were already old-hat, and nothing new is added here. Swanson and Olivier have very little chemistry, and Olivier has yet to develop much screen charisma (plus he looks downright sickly in his swimsuit scene). The obtrusive, bombastic score is also a detriment. This was an expensive failure for Swanson, who also produced. Co-star Michael Farmer was Swanson's husband at the time. Director Gardner was hired as editor but took over directing duties when original pick Rowland V. Lee was fired.

Yes, yes, I know that Sir Laurence thought that all his films before "Wuthering Heights" were garbage. But this is a forgotten gem. Sure, people may not like it, and I get why, because this film doesn't introduce anything new. It's got Judy (Gloria Swanson), an actress I really like, paired with Nick Randall (Laurence Olivier), in a film that involves at first, a good deal of fluff, and then it takes a turn for the dramatic. Honestly, I have to say, the last half hour of the film didn't impress me. Yes, I'm a sucker for fluff and light-hearted stuff, and the fact that Laurence Olivier was looking his best here, at age 26, didn't really predispose me not to like this film. But I have to say about the character of Nick, he was a complete blockhead in the last half hour. He admitted his mistake and wanted forgiveness, but when he thought that Judy did the same thing, gosh, he totally flew off the handle and absolutely frustrated both me and her. You did the same thing, Nick, so you may as well take responsibility. But the jealousy part plays out very realistically, so I don't mind too much. The ending was a bit rushed, though.

Still, watch this movie if you're either a Laurence Olivier fan who just wants to see him (and not mind characters being blockheads), or if you're a Gloria Swanson fan. Nothing new, but enjoyable all the same.