Le parfait accord

I first saw Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Blvd" (1950) and loved her in the movie. She played an actress who was past her prime yet behaved as though she was in her heyday. Throughout the movie it was as though she was always on stage, which is how I imagine actors and actresses behave when they try to hold on to their glory days. Her movements, expressions, and speech were exaggerated like there was a camera focused on her at all times.

After watching "Perfect Understanding" I realize that's just the way Gloria Swanson acts. As good as she was in "Sunset Blvd" she was equally terrible in "Perfect Understanding." The speech, the expressions, and the behavior were exaggerated and made even more comical by the music. And she and Joan Crawford have mastered the frozen, wide-eyed, crazy look which looks so unnatural.

In "Perfect Understanding" Swanson plays Judy Rogers, a high society woman from America who was in love with Nicholas Randall (Laurence Olivier), a high society man from England. The two were crazy in love, but Judy wasn't keen on the idea of marriage, no matter how many times Nicholas proposed. Eventually, Judy gave in and agreed to marry Nicholas with a contract stating that they'd always have a "perfect understanding" and that they'd "never be husband and wife but lover and mistress. And above everything else, to remain individual."

To Judy, jealousy was an ugly trait only to be found in commoners or the insecure. She'd have the opportunity to put her beliefs to the test because orbiting around her and Nicholas was Stephanie (Nora Swindburne), a married woman who was unabashedly in love with Nicholas. She would ruin her own marriage as well as Nicholas's if given the chance.

"Perfect Understanding" followed a predictable pattern. Unfortunately, it was another high-society movie involving grand exclamations of love and affection as well as rampant infidelity. It's a tired theme that's simply redone with new actors and a slightly adjusted script. The moment I saw Stephanie ogling Nicholas I knew what we were in for. There was nothing novel about this movie nor was there anything worth watching unless you're a fan of Gloria Swanson or Laurence Olivier.

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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.

A young, moustached Olivier looks extremely ill at ease in this good-looking but garrulous and boring marital drama set in the South of France but with hardly any of the cast actually leaving the studio. He later called it "the worst film ever made"; presumably that was before he made 'The Betsy'!

Gloria Swanson had formed a film company just to make this film. Unfortunately, this is precisely the type of film that her most famous character, Norma Desmond, likely wanted to make in Sunset Boulevard.

It is really a silent film with dialog replacing the text screens. The actors make grand extravagant gestures, turn their faces to and fro while fluttering their eyelids. The incessant music swells at appropriate moments to indicate high drama. The dialog seems like a nuisance to be summarily added and neglected - after all Swanson had done pretty well for all those years without dialog - why worry about that now.

The quite modern premise of the film, a semi-open marriage, and the conflict brought on by the juxtaposition of the end of the flapper era avant-garde attitudes with the conservative Victorian mores ensconced in the judicial attitude towards divorce should have made the film more interesting that it was.

However, the only real interest and tension is generated by incredible boat race where cocktails are drunk at every station to make the race more difficult! Prohibition was about to be repealed and the celebration of alcohol consumption in such stark contrast to today's attitudes is fascinating.

Tighter editing, better pacing and dialog might have made this worthwhile. As is, it is a curio from the early years of sound, and of interest to the historian and perhaps to the film buff as a primer on the world of Norma Desmond.

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.