Born to Love

I really love Constance Bennett and Joel McCrea and their underrated talent and range, but this film was just one emotional blow after another to Bennett's character, Doris Kendall, a nurse in Great Britain during World War I, to the point where it got hard to continue watching. The film starts out on a rather fascinating note - Doris is practically hypnotized by the sight of a German dirigible in a rather strange "dogfight" with British planes over London. Down goes the dirigible in a pile of flames.

Joel McCrea's character, Captain Barry Craig, pulls Doris out of danger and sparks begin to fly. At the same time, Doris is nursing an English nobleman (Paul Cavanagh as Sir Wilfred Drake) back to health from his war wounds and he has fallen in love with her. Captain Craig and Doris throw convention to the wind and spend one night together and consummate their relationship before he has to ship out to France. Then one tragedy after another ensues, some due to misunderstandings, some due to natural occurrences, and some due to divorce law in England as it stood in the early twentieth century in which one of the parties had to be the bad guy in order for divorce to occur with legally punitive measures taken against the party that is deemed to be "at fault".

This movie may costar McCrea, but this is really Constance Bennett's film all the way. Frederick Kerr is particularly noteworthy as an older member of England's upper class that has a crusty exterior that hides a gooey center - he's quite sympathetic and kind to Doris. Louise Closser Hale plays his wife who also has a crusty exterior but has a heart of - well - crust. In spite of these differences in viewpoint these two older members of the cast play off one another quite well.

Recommended, but not if you're looking to be cheered up.

Born to Love (1931) is rather silly but nevertheless is a good example of a candid treatment of divorce law before the Production Code of 1935 put a stop to serious treatment of divorce or of pre-marital sexuality. Stuck in a loveless marriage to Wilfred, a haughty English aristocrat, Doris causes Wilfred to believe she has committed adultery. The consequences to her are catastrophic.

The plot is creaky and relies on numerous contrivances. The acting is highly forgettable. Nevertheless, the issues of fault-based divorce are important ones. The movie also concerns the conflict between marriage as an institution for love and fulfillment as opposed to a unemotional union designed for the mutual support of spouses and children. Needless to say, divorce law in the old days was much better adapted to the latter vision of marriage than the former.

The first of four films Constance Bennett did with Joel McCrea was one that you'd better bring the bath towels to the theater if you saw it. I'm sure even the men had a tear or two seeing what Connie went through.

An American nurse in London during World War I Bennett has American ace Joel McCrea and stiff upper lip British major Paul Cavanaugh after her. She loves McCrea and can't see Cavanaugh.

But when McCrea gets shot down and goes missing in action she's very pregnant and the sympathetic Cavanaugh is ready to marry her and make her respectable.

The usual complications ensue after that and Bennett pays a heavy price for her romances.

Born To Love fits rater neatly into that category called women's pictures. Women who worried where the next meal might come from, plunked don their nickel and could sympathize with a woman like Bennett and her complicated romantic life.

For this type the film is OK, but I doubt we'll see a remake in this century.

During WWI, an American nurse, Doris (Constance Bennett) meets up with an American serviceman, Barry (Joel McCrea) and soon the pair are in love. Since this is a pre-code picture*, the pair apparently slept together before he shipped out for France...with the promise to marry her when he returned. However, she soon receives word that Barry has been killed...and she is pregnant. The ardent suitor, Sir Wilfred, still wants to marry her despite this and so she agrees. No one is apparently the wiser that the baby was not his other than Sir Wilfred and his new bride...and things appear very happy. However, when Barry returns and it's obvious he was not killed in action but only injured, Doris has some tough choices...as does Sir Wilfred. Unfortunately, Sir Wilfred does NOT rise to the occasion. What exactly happens? Well, see the film and be prepared for a few surprises.

What I appreciated about this film is that it took a somewhat familiar story idea and cast all sorts of unexpected events as well. The story is NOT one you'll be predicting long before things occur. Additionally, for a 1932 film the acting is quite nice. Well worth your time.

*In films released after July, 1934, this story would have either not been filmed at all or would have been heavily edited due to the premarital sex in the plot. Such things were pretty much taboo in the post-code era...a time period during which Hollywood began making more wholesome and less sordid movies. And, while I love the pre-code films, as they are very entertaining, some of the films did get a bit too racy considering that there was no rating system and anyone could have been in the audiences to see topless girls in "Ben Hur" (1925), lechrous bosses who refused to keep their hands off the women at work ("Employees Entrance") and women who sleep their way to the top...and somehow remain there by the end of the story ("Red-Headed Woman"). I don't think this film really has anything offensive at all about in it...but a few pre-code films did seem to really push the envelope!

In BORN TO LOVE, Constance Bennett (Doris) and Joel McRea (Barry) are lovers who meet during the last weeks of the First World War. London is portrayed as a city in imminent danger of bombs from aircraft. They meet and predictably fall in love despite the chaos and confusion that surround them. There is an interesting scene in which they make love, one that is prudishly suggested off screen, yet one that in just a few years would have been banned by Hollywood as overtly salacious. The plot is the contrived package of Barry's reported death, forcing Doris to marry another. The second half of the film is less melodramatic and more of an acerbic commentary on the harshness of an English divorce system that allows a rich and titled husband to retain custody of a child over the wishes of a impecunious mother. There is an encoded ideology in the film that does not hide the fact that poor women who marry titled men can expect no mercy or kindness from a patriarchal legal system. BORN TO LOVE nevertheless carries the audience to a satisfying if not predictable conclusion of the need for true love to triumph over formidable societal obstacles.