There Goes the Bride

Although this is a talkie it has some silent film stars in it and it still has a very silent movie feel to it. The music, for one, and the overacting.

It would have worked much better if it had been a silent.

Never seen Jessie Matthews in anything before and she looks really cute, is built like Olive Oyl, and can clearly dance.

But that voice. Horrors! So plummy she makes Joyce Grenfell sound like something off EastEnders. It's absolutely unbearable and adds to the fact that, at least in this film, she just can't act. Overacting like in a silent film. It really is excruciating.

Owen Nares as the male lead reminds me of Basil Fawlty and everyone has those unbearable cut-glass accents.

The one bright spot was. Roland Culver as a drunk Jacques - an absolute delight.

One of the songs rips off 'Makin' Whoopee'.

How times have changed: probably nobody back then batted an eyelid at Jessie Matthews and Owen Nares getting together even though he was old enough to be her father - and looked like he could be her grandfather! Owen Nares was certainly a man of his time - he seems so natural with the rest of the cast who all seem to be members of the English (or inexplicably in the film, French) upper echelons of society. With the exception of the late Queen Elizabeth, these people along with their bizarre accents mysteriously ceased to exist after the war.

Nares is definitely not someone you think you'd warm to but he's surprisingly perfect in this. Were this an American film, one could imagine Carey Grant playing his character who's ordered life is turned upside down by the arrival of the whirlwind that is Miss Matthews. Again, were this an American film she'd be Katherine Hepburn - I could imagine these two in BRINGING UP BABY, very similar humour.

This film gives a beautiful glimpse into a long-gone world inhabited by a species who looked a bit like us but behaved, thought, spoke and indeed loved very differently. It's not however just a fascinating snapshot into a distant far away planet, it's actually a really fun film. Honesty, I was not expecting this to be as entertaining and enjoyable as it was. OK, it's not Monty Python or even Will Hay but it is genuinely funny - I have to confess to succumbing to a couple of laugh out loud moments as well.

Gaumont-British were one of the classier studios of the 30s but even so I was surprised at just how well made this picture was. Absolutely first rate acting - even from the minor characters, good direction, camerawork and lighting - it's even got a full musical score running through it which wasn't that common in 1932 - not just here but in the US as well. Besides being well made, what elevates this to something special is that it does magic to you!

Somehow by some strange magic, this picture makes you smile from beginning to end, you cannot help it. Well it's not magic, what makes you smile is simply the presence of Jessie Matthews - I have no idea how she does it, she just does. In her later Victor Saville musicals in the mid-30s, she is considerably more glamorous and very sexy. In this however she's as un-sexy as anyone can be and yet (even with the weird accent) she's utterly adorable and simply lovely. She's just so likeable that she makes this whole film likeable as well - you will enjoy this.

"There goes the Bride" is essentially and simply a farce (albeit one set -- for no very clear reason -- in France). As such, the plot makes about as much sense as in any other of the many films in which the heroine proves herself irresistible by making the leading man's life a complete misery; and it contrives to be considerably less irritating than most of them.

As the pert and wilful Annette, Jessie Matthews is all big eyes and eloquent reaction; it is interesting to note that she has already established the character without any real dialogue to speak of until after the first few scenes. In fact, for an early sound film this shows a notable willingness to tell its story through visuals in addition to the laughs obtained by an often genuinely funny script; there were moments when the audience were literally shouting with laughter.

It has to be said that Miss Matthews, in her first leading screen role, sometimes overacts. If she were not already in possession of top billing one might assume that she is doing her best here to steal the show! However, it is hard to say where the actress's cinematic inexperience begins and the impudent Annette's 'putting on an act' ends; certainly her charm is more than enough to excuse any exaggeration. Conversely, Owen Nares has been criticised for lack of charisma, although I couldn't see it -- I did notice one or two flat line readings on his part that sounded as if they should have gone for a retake.

All in all I found this surprisingly good entertainment: undemanding fluff in a polished production that manages to be witty without being annoying, ridiculous without stupidity, and sneaks in a good deal of conscious naughtiness into the bargain. I'm frankly amazed that this apparently rated a 'U' rather than an 'A' ('Adult') certificate on release, as I'd have thought parts of it were quite risqué!

The perky and thoroughly charming Jessie Matthews is being sold off in marriage by her parents to Basil Radford, so the sensible French girl runs off to Paris, where everyone speaks like stage English people. Her purse is stolen and she winds up in the hands of a suspicious Owen Nares, who has a suspicious fiancée, for whom Miss Matthews is naturally mistaken by his gullible and mostly drunken friends.

Miss Matthews sings two songs, dances almost not at all. Like many of Miss Matthews' leading men, Mr. Nares seems frightened of women. David Niven is credited as an extra in what is supposed to be his first appearance onscreen, but I didn't spot him. Henry Koster is co-credited with the script in which the idiot plotting is barely justified and then ignored. I enjoyed it.

There Goes the Bride is a story about a rich, young woman who runs away from her father and her fiancé; then when she's on a train, she gets robbed and is forced to seek refuge with a perfect stranger, with whom she bickers and subsequently falls in love. Does that sound familiar? Too bad for Henry Koster, Wolfgang Wilhelm, and W.P. Lipscomb, because their movie went completely unnoticed, and two years later, It Happened One Night swept the Academy Awards!

It's a very similar movie, except this one has British actors in it and a side plot involving a misidentify instead of a hitchhiking scene. Jessie Matthews is the adorable lead, and she sings the song "I'll Stay with You", whose theme is repeated throughout the film, making it a delightful old movie to watch. I happen to think It Happened One Night is overrated, as there were dozens of romantic comedies at that time which were just as cute if not cuter.

I only came across this forgotten film because it was David Niven's first movie, and it's become a bit of a challenge to watch his early films and try to spot him among the extras. I wasn't successful, since the movie's loaded with crowd scenes. Still, I'm glad I watched it, and if you like watching obscure very old movies, you might want to give this one a try, too.