Doctors' Wives

This pre-Code drama isn't remarkable for the raunchiness that passed by the censors, but instead for the time capsule of how marriages were viewed in 1931. In 1931, women were expected to completely build their lives around their husbands. If they were neglected, ignored, or cheated on, it was a man's prerogative. He worked hard to bring home the bacon and was entitled to live exactly the way he wanted. While we are supposed to feel sorry for Joan Bennett's heartache in Doctor's Wives, we are not supposed to think it unusual or cruel - in 1931, that is.

Sometimes I really like Warner Baxter, but not in this movie. Just as in To Mary, With Love, he plays a careless cad who doesn't think anyone can get hurt by his actions. Joan tries to surprise Warner at the office to breathe spark back into their marriage, and when she opens the door to his office, he's examining a naked woman. Joan is horrified, but Warner, clueless (and heartless), just tells her to go on home and he'll be back later. When he finally does return home, he insults Joan's lingerie and suggests she buy some in green because he's noticed how pretty it's looked on his female patients when they undress. How hurtful can you get?

Again, in the 1931 mindset, Joan plays an absolute dumbbell. She's ditzy, helpless, and gives Warner no reason to like her except to feel like her savior (and to enjoy her very pretty face). When he proposes, she wants to marry immediately. They have no license yet, and she suggests he write a prescription for it. Perhaps that was supposed to be cute back then, but today, it comes across as shockingly stupid.

After they're married, Joan feels neglected. Others tell her to relax, that it's par for the course to be alone more than with her husband, since she married a doctor. However, the sting comes when he flirts with other women right in front of her. During the few precious times that they do have together, he ignores her and puts on the charm for others. In a symbolic scene, given the choice to light the cigarette of Joan or a female dinner guest who has been draping herself on him all evening, he chooses the latter. It is very hurtful, and I highly doubt we are supposed to think that is par for the course because she married a doctor.

We can't know what we would have thought of this movie had we seen it in 1931. We would have been raised differently and lived different experiences. Today, it's an insulting movie. It's insulting to womanhood, and it hurts the hearts of those who have been in Joan's shoes.

Joan Bennett marries Doctor Warner Baxter. They're very much in love, but he's a good-looking surgeon, and there is always an operation or or consultation or research, or society women with vague complaints, so time hangs on her hands. She grows jealous. When his friend and researcher on cancer, Victor Varconi comes to town, they are thrown together.... and Varconi falls for her and Baxter knows it.

Miss Bennett gets a lot of screen time with Fox's Academy Award winner in the top spot, which can be explained b the fact that Frank Borzage is directing. It's certainly a competent soap opera, but pretty far from Borzage's poetic realism strain.

It was a time when women were rarely doctors;they had to be content with being doctors 'wives .Borzage 's movie depicts the life of one of them,portrayed by a young Joan Benett,how she learns to share her dear husband with his patients (I love the last line ,even if by feminist standards ,it's completely obsolete today).

It is an uneven movie,out shadowed by so many masterpieces (" the river" "lucky star" " street angel" "young America" "a farewell to arms" " a man's castle" "no greater glory" etc etc ) nobody to this day wrote a comment on it.

The best scene ,IMHO,is at the beginning of the movie:Benett is holding the phone when the two doctors enter the room:we can see by their face her old man has died ;then we hear her mum,coming back from a party,laugh...As the part of the mother is very underwritten ,this scene does not really count .

Borzage's main subject is present though :some people are ready to sacrifice their own life so the others' will be better:so is Dr Kane,who "does not eat strawberries but like them" and spends his time doing research on cancer.This character , the most interesting of "Doctor's wives" ,will reappear,under another name,played by Leslie Howard this time in "Green light" (1937).

Should be reserved to Borzage's fans,but there are plenty of them...