Deux enfants terribles

Recent divorcée Mary Astor (Edith Farham) and daughter Brenda, spend Christmas at a fashionable mountain hotel - ski lodge. At the same time, Melvin Douglas (Stephan Blake) a long time widower arrives awaiting his ten-year-old son, also to spend their Christmas holidays together. Brenda is a man hater, apparently because daddy left her and mommy. When Steve's son (Tommy) arrives both children take an immediate dislike of one another -- to the point of physically beating each other up! Both children can't stand the fact that Edith and Steve are becoming attracted to each other, and both are determined to derail any chance of Steve and Edith becoming a couple. In most romantic 1930's comedies kids are not as mischievous or in fact, as delinquent as this pair is, but it's done in funny ways that keeps the kids from becoming obnoxious. A good cast with fine supporting actors drives this film merrily along. Columbia Pictures was good at making comedies. This is worth a look, if you like that genre.

At the beginning, Ms. Astor is delightful. Her performance seems pitched somewhere between the lovely one in "Dodsworth" and the brilliant one a few years later in "The Great Lie." She throws her head back and laughs. She speaks in that unusual mezzo. I started out with high hopes.

Melvyn Douglas, too, was one of the best comic actors of the time. He does OK. And small roles are well cast, as with Porter Hall as the owner of the lodge where most of the movie takes place.

But alas! It degenerates into a movie primarily about children we're supposed to find adorable. I love children, make no mistake. But this is icky. Edith Fellows, who was good in other movies, is unappealing as Astor's daughter. The boy isn't much better.

It isn't the fault of the child actors, though. It's the script. It's forced, almost desperate.

And so we find the prolific and versatile Ms. Astor in one of her lesser outings.

And So They Were Married (1936)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A man hating divorcée (Mary Astor) goes to a snow lodge where she meets a woman hating widow (Melvyn Douglas) and the two quickly hit it off but their children decide to make sure they don't get married. This romantic comedy has a lot going for it but the screenplay starts to go off in all directions and it doesn't go after the most appealing aspects of the film. Astor and Douglas are both terrific in their roles as they manage to be quite charming, romantic and endearing. The two have wonderful chemistry together and they shine whenever they're together. The problem comes when the children (Judith Fellows, Jackie Moran) start to take over the picture. Their fighting and bickering works for a while but when it starts to take the story away from the adults it becomes rather annoying. There's one hilarious sequence where the kids feed a dog soap and when it takes off through the hotel it sets off a panic that the dog is rabid.

I must qualify my rating of this picture - I am a pure unadulterated Mary Astor fan, and I must ask myself, 'Would I have given this film the same rating if another actress were playing the part?' Honestly, no. I cannot say that the story isn't a bit trite. Here are two children, played by Edith Fellows and Jackie Moran, who, wishing to keep widowed and divorced parents to themselves, plot to thwart the blossoming romance between Mom (Mary Astor) and Dad (Melvyn Douglas). With predictable results. Douglas was a fine comedic actor, and his presence certainly helps lift the picture over some of the rough spots. The kids were pretty fair actors in their own right, and do not at all detract from what could have been a pretty dismal effort. In her biography, Ms. Astor confirmed that she rarely argued over the quality of a script. She went to work and did the best she could with the material given her. This is one she may have been better off choosing to be difficult about.

Melvyn Douglas was a marvelous actor who somehow never quite made it to the top ranks on acting....but he was terrific in just about everything he did...even crap like "And So They Were Married". He gives it his best and is quite nice in the film but the terribly flawed and clichéd story is beyond anyone's ability to fix!

When the film begins, the audience soon realizes that Stephen (Douglas) and Edith (Mary Astor) will fall in love. Why? Because they hate each other and realistically they haven't a prayer of falling in love. But, as the movie is filled with clichés, they soon find themselves in love at the mountain resort they are both visiting with their respective children. Joel has brought his son to spend Christmas there, as he's a widower. And, Edith has brought her daughter and she recently got divorced. The romance is working just fine for a few days, as the resort is snowed in and the two kids are stuck in town. But once they arrive, the brats decide they don't like each other and if their parents marry, life will be awful...so even though they hate each other, they agree to work together to make their parents miserable. This is a sad excuse for a plot, as it's so selfish and nasty...and some of their behaviors (such destroying the Christmas tree and many of the presents of the other hotel guests) isn't funny...it's just cruel. This cruelness definitely was a bad decision in the film....and it's sad because although they are hateful, the two young actors playing the kids actually did a great job with what they were given. It could have been a bit like "The Parent Trap" but was sunk due to selfishness, too many clichés and a few characters who were more caricatures than real, believable people.