Week-End Marriage

I love old movies, especially pre-code films. I also Love Loretta Young. Beauty aside, she has sincerity, wit and range that make her so watchable and relatable. I am also a thrice divorced, black, female, retired attorney. I can watch many an old movie and still consider it good or entertaining despite a lot of undesirable content. But I can NOT abide this one. I am a woman of many words and this movie has left me speechless. I guess, to quote another reviewer, all it takes is sacrifice. Compromise would have made for a more realistic movie. Healthier too. This movie's message was not emotionally healthy for women in 1932 during the depression or anytime since then. Kinda afraid to start the next recorded movie.

Weekend Marriage (1932)

** (out of 4)

After their marriage, Loretta Young and her husband find troubles when she starts making more money than him. He didn't want her to work at all and now he begins to feel like the wife. Here's another early moral tale that's pretty slow moving throughout, although the leads offer good performances. This story was pretty normal for the Pre-Code years at Warner and I often wondered if they just used the same screenplay from previous films and changed them up a bit. Young is as beautiful as ever but she's done better films.

I think the movie is well-cast and well-written and definitely worth the time it takes to watch it. Yes, it is biased but it is still fun to watch the story unfold.

On a sensual level: Loretta Young was simply beautiful. She is lovely to look at in this film and her voice is so easy on the ears. Despite, the fact that sound technology wasn't all that sophisticated at the time. Just take her husbands voice in this film as a comparison....yuk. Oh, if you like nice costumes, Lola/Loretta looks fabulous in her thirties outfits, slender and graceful, simply gorgeous. The apartment where Lola lives as a newlywed is adorable.

On a conceptual level: This film contains strong social commentary involving the tension between men and women in terms of courtship, marriage and the roles played by each member of the union. Of course, the writer(s) & director support the traditionally prescribed gender roles of men as breadwinner and woman as caretaker. No big surprise. Yet, the character of Lola is compelling because the author/screen writer infused her with the will of a modern woman AND an enduring love for the man she married (despite the fact he is a dork, excuse my word choice).

Another reason to take the time to watch this one if you have the chance is the script and the supporting cast. Lola and "what's his name" do not exist in a vacuum. They are a surrounded by adequately developed characters and events that describe the often subtle yet powerful transactions that take place between brothers & sisters; men & women; and married folks & their lovers. The film illustrates the daily parade of interactions and transactions that occur between partners in the business of long term relationships.

Don't let me forgot that the main focus of this story is the role of women and the power women have to choose their destiny, marriage, work and/or children. I'd like to think if this movie was remade today, it could provide Lola a more satisfactory ending.

The much mentioned pre-code date of this film seems not to matter in the essential message, only in incidentals. It basically represented the follies of a working wife in extreme examples. It's also ironic for Ms. Young since biographies, both authorized and other, reveal her to have been one of the most career-driven, image crafting women in the industry -- literally an absentee wife and mother. She reaped benefits in the area of her investment - film - and reprisals from where she didn't - her family. The husband and sons literally moved out and distanced themselves from her and the daughter literally wrenched herself away from her. As for her acting, that was not her problem, as she put all her eggs in that basket and was very respected in the industry on that score. She limited herself only by shunning what to her were immoral themes and venues as she went along, due to her espoused faith.

Regardless, the film was one of the more interesting ones of the era with some very good performances. Aline McM was always a cool number, no matter what she did, along with others like Eve Arden, Thelma Ritter -- they just had an unbeatable persona. All in all, this is no sillier in premise than any other Hollywood vehicle of its type and better in other ways than a lot.

Yes, it's very well done, by some superb actors, but the premise that women exist primarily to serve their men, first, is infuriating and, second, was out of date for rational people even in 1932.

One of the most infuriating speeches I have ever heard was spoken by the doctor, and is quoted at length on the main page here at IMDb.

Far too many people, yes, even today, take Ephesians 5 to an extreme and interpret it to mean "women, lie down and be a doormat."

A Greek scholar I once worked for said the King James phrasing, "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands ..." is not a very accurate translation, that the word translated as "submit" does not convey the original Greek. He said a better understanding is not that women are supposed to be subordinate, but that women -- and men -- get united into a couple.

So, not to give away the ending, I walked away from the TCM presentation directly to the computer to review this angrily.

Yes, I admired the production and the acting and everything else except the terrible message. And, yes, I hope everyone who likes classic movies will watch because it is, truly, a classic movie, illustrating its time and showcasing some remarkably talented people, including the beautiful Loretta Young.

We all need to remember the context, that "Week-End Marriage" was made in 1932, and to think about what people said and did and believed then, and make sure we don't make the same mistakes today, 2015.