Week-End Marriage

When I watched this recently, I had a feeling that someone had inadvertently mixed two movies together. The first half is a light-hearted story of courtship and marriage, with Ken (Norman Foster) pursuing and marrying Lola (Loretta Young). After that, the movie becomes very serious, with Ken losing his job, having all sorts of objections to his wife having a professional job, then getting drunk, hanging around with another woman (Sheila Terry), and waiting for Lola to bail him out of jail. Lola is very disappointed in Ken (no kidding!) and leaves him to take an executive job in St. Louis. There, she meets and is pursued by George Brent, but rushes back to Ken's side when he's ill, even though he's living with the tramp who got him arrested. Ending is predictable, and I think it shouldn't have been that way.

The movie's good and has lots of pre-Code touches, like Ken and Lola actually sharing the same bed, and Ken cheating on Lola with a trampy blonde. Young is absolutely lovely, and Aline McMahon steals every scene she's in as Young's sister-in-law. Enjoyable pre-Code stuff, though the final message--and Doctor Grant Mitchell's lecture to Young--are woefully dated.

The film opens on a young couple (Loretta Young as Lola and Norman Foster as Ken) standing in line at the movies. The movie is, of course, a Warner Brothers film of the time - "Blessed Event". Jack Warner always got his money's worth out of any opportunity for self promotion. At any rate Ken is the old-fashioned type who won't marry unless he earns enough that his wife can stay at home. He's made it clear he wants to marry Lola, and also made it clear that he doesn't make enough to support the two. Then comes the news - Ken has a real opportunity at his job but he'll have to go for an extended trip to South America. Lola is heartbroken as regardless of what Ken says she feels this will be the end for the two of them. Along comes helpful sister-in-law Agnes played by the delightful Aline McMahon who writes out in short-hand some lines that will get Ken to propose - that along with a ruse that there is another suitor for Lola's hand and Lola saying that she may marry him if Ken goes away. The trick works. Ken doesn't go on the assignment, stays at his old job, and the two marry. But then the working man's version of "A Star is Born" syndrome sets in. Ken first gets a pay cut and then fired when he is absent from work due to being in jail on a bender. Meanwhile Lola gets promoted with a pay raise and then an opportunity to go with the boss to St. Louis and be his executive assistant - her current position is being eliminated so she is out of work if she does not go.

Lola has to go through the humiliation of bailing her husband out of the drunk tank - along with his blonde female companion - only to be told by Ken that this whole thing is her fault and she needs to quit her job to save their marriage. Now remember, Ken doesn't have a job anymore, this is the Great Depression, how practical is this request or should I say ultimatum? Lola goes to St. Louis anyways. I'll let you watch and see how and if everything pans out.

This film is interesting because of a couple of scenes. One is considered precode because of the fact that it shows a married couple in bed - not twin beds - starting to get frisky when their moment is interrupted by the tyranny of the alarm clock. The second scene is completely out of whack with the rest of the picture but very powerful. Lola has a friend whose brother is going to force her into an arranged marriage with a bootlegger years older than she. The friend asks her to come to her house to tell her brother that the friend does not have to marry the bootlegger and can do what she likes - this is America. The brutish brother begs to disagree, knocks his sister to the floor, makes you think he is about to do the same to Lola, and forces the frightened sister into the arms of the repulsive fiancé when he arrives. Lola looks away in frightened disgust.

Now this scene with the friend might make you think that maybe the film is trying to say that even in modern times a girl can't get a break from men who are unhappy and take it out on their women if there isn't enough money, and do the same if there is enough money because the woman pitches in with a job but then their socks aren't darned or the dishes need washing. However, later in the film there is a speech similar to that made by the brutish brother of Lola's friend except this time more articulate and by a respected member of the community - a doctor. Again, everything is all Lola's fault and the fault of all working women.

I'd recommend this one because of the unique precode look at marriage, because of the good performances, and because, regardless of what the message of this film is supposed to be, it is a window into another time when a girl often really couldn't get a break.

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.

As with many "pre-code" Hollywood films of the early thirties, "Week-End Marriage" has its startling moments of naturalness (a couple sharing a bed rather than separate bunks divided by a nightstand, for instance) but its theme is so horribly dated and presented in such an awful stacked-deck way that any woman viewing it would likely explode with indignation before it ends. Honestly, this film purports to convey to the female audience that any serious attempt at working outside the home is a dereliction of duty to the care and feeding of men. We're presented with two shining examples of manhood in the characters of whiny Roscoe Karns, as Aline MacMahon's husband, or sniveling loser Norman Foster as Loretta Young's hubby. Neither husband seems to have the capacity to be a money maker, but rather than be pleased at the additional income provided by their working wives, they fume and complain about un-darned socks and un-done dishes. Oh, how can the poor dears possibly cope?! Well, they don't. Foster gets busted for public intoxication, loses his job, finds a mistress, gets horribly sick, but in the end this is all attributed to Loretta Young's success with her job... and it must be stopped! The filmmakers are so sickeningly chauvinistic that they even shoehorn-in a doctor who lays on a mean-spirited speech to Young about how women must be subservient caretakers of the menfolk otherwise civilization will flounder. And Young buys it! She wraps her arms around poor Foster and tells him she's quitting her job to take care of him (i.e. be his slave) so that he can gain back his self-respect. No mention of how they'll get by since he's a loser who can't hold down a job. Apparently her ability to do dishes and darn socks will revitalize his work performance in future. And keeping her out of the workplace will lessen the size of the cancerous tumor of working women that threatens the stability of a male dominated society. I'm a man reviewing this and even I'M appalled! The only bright spot in this otherwise offensive garbage is Aline MacMahon, in only her fourth film role, and she's a pistol. She lights up the screen with her forceful, sassy, but altogether warm-hearted performance as Young's sister-in-law. In fact, if the film had been more about MacMahon and Roscoe Karns it would have been quite a delightful comedy. I'd advise seeing it for her performance only, unless you feel a need to get wound up over dated sexism. Additional note: The film 'Saturday's Children' (1940) with John Garfield is attributed to the play of the same name by Maxwell Anderson, but it uses the same tricked-into-marriage set-up and the same job-in-South America idea as this film, as well as the sister & brother in law characters (in the 40 film that character is also played by Roscoe Karns!) There is plagiarism involved here. I haven't read the Faith Baldwin novel for this film, or the Anderson play, but the similarities are obvious.