Divorcé malgré lui

David Niven and Loretta Young pledge to be "Eternally Yours" in this 1939 film also featuring Hugh Herbert, C. Aubrey Smith, Broderick Crawford, Eve Arden, Zasu Pitts, and Billie Burke.

Young plays Anita, who is engaged to Don (Crawford); however, she attends a performance by The Great Arturo (Niven), a Houdini-type who also reads minds and palms, and it's love at first sight for both of them. They marry, and she becomes part of his act, traveling full time all over the world.

Anita is hoping to settle down with Arturo and have a home and family. With the help of her grandfather (C. Aubrey Smith) she secretly builds her dream home. When she shows it to Arturo, he dismisses it. She leaves him, divorces him, and marries Don.

Light comedy with a charming cast. Young is beautiful, 26 at the time, and she and Niven work well together, as they did in one of my favorite movies, The Bishop's Wife.

People commented that this is a horrible plot, bad script, etc. It seemed pretty typical to me of the type of comedy done back then, no better, no worse.

David Niven was a remarkable man who died an awful death from ALS. An accomplished writer as well as actor, he was a gentleman through and through.

When he died, the porters at Heathrow sent a wreath that said, 'To the finest gentleman who ever walked through these halls. He made a porter feel like a king'.

I enjoyed this picture a lot. It has the warmth of the classics, yet the characterization and the whole plot fits to today's world. The incredible chemistry between the two leads is (I found) very rare among movies from that age.

Plot: Anita (Young) divorces Tony (Niven) because he appears both unfaithful and more interested in his magic show than her. But despite their separation and new partners, the mutual attraction remains. So what will happen now.

Despite the two scintillating A-list leads, Niven and Young, the flick fails to gel. Maybe that's because I saw a badly edited version whose unfortunate number IMDB points out. Then again, maybe it's the cluttered result of 8 writers working on the same screenplay, which seldom works. Also, it's apparent the producers were clearly worried about the watchdog censors of The Motion Picture Code, since much of the narrative plays around with non-marital sex and how their characters might avoid it. Unfortunately, the solutions are highly contrived (e.g. Crawford getting the clumsy run-around from Young since they're not really married). Still and all, production did manage to sneak in a double bed for N &Y's early wedded bliss, a bed that also symbolizes their enduring love despite the many difficulties.

On the upside are magician Niven's stage tricks and a look at how they're done, though I found his should-be-suspenseful parachuting poorly done (needs more close-ups of his struggling while falling). On the other hand, there's the many close-ups of the lovely Loretta, a wholesome darling. And on a more minor note, how about a youngish Broderick Crawford as a romantic interest - that sure took me some getting used to.

Anyway, too bad the different parts of the romantic comedy fail to gel and that it took 8 writers to apparently keep the censors at bay. Nonetheless, the two photogenic leads show why their careers were long and popular despite the let-down here.

ETERNALLY YOURS (United Artists, 1939), a Walter Wanger Presentation directed by Tay Garnett, is a light romantic comedy with familiar overtones assisted by magical ideas thrown in for good measure. Starring Loretta Young and David Niven, their third collaboration and first in which they are the main attractions to an original screenplay written by Graham Baker and Gene Towne, about a magician's love for a lovely lady engaged to another.

As the opening credits get underway with an offscreen male vocalist singing the title tune, the story begins with a view of New York City followed by a bridal shower taking place at the Angel's Rectory, founded by Bishop Hubert Peabody, grandfather of its guest of honor, Anita Halstead (Loretta Young), engaged to Don Burns (Broderick Crawford). Along with her assortment of female guests, including her best friend, Gloria (Eve Arden) and Aunt Abbey (Billie Burke), Anita acquires an advertisement introducing debonair magician and mind reader, Tony Halstead, better known as The Great Auturo (David Niven), to which she and her friends decide to attend his special afternoon engagement for ladies to see what their future foretells. Of the many ladies surrounding Arturo, he immediately spots and becomes attracted to Anita. Following his private reading with her, Arturo and Anita get married. With Anita acting as his assistant, they go on a world tour performing magic acts. Eighteen months later while in England, Anita feels its about time she and Tony settle down for a normal married life in Connecticut. Tony, however, has other plans. After doing his death defying stunt jumping 100,000 feet from an airplane with his hands handcuffed behind his back with only moments to free himself and open his parachute in time for a safe landing, Arturo intends on resuming this dangerous act. Unable to live in worry any further, Anita leaves and divorces Tony. She later resuming her relationship with Don and marries him, while Lola DeVere (Virginia Field) becomes Arturo's new assistant. While his divorce from Anita finds him incapable of performing successfully, his next trick is to get Anita back.

ETERNALLY YOURS is helped considerably by its worthy cast of Hugh Herbert as Arturo's servant, Benton, breaking away from his typical buffoonery by playing it straight; Raymond Walburn and Zasu Pitts as the Binghams, Harley and Cary; Ralph Graves (Mr. Morrissey); Fred Keating (Master of Ceremonies) and its director, Tay Garnett, as the airplane pilot. In spite of its impressive cast, the end result is a fairly amusing comedy. Loretta Young (with some extreme close-ups) and David Niven (in his star making performance) do well in their initial lead pairing. Though it contains no slapstick nor climatic chases, the death defying airplane jumping sequence is both exciting and fearful. Young and Niven would team again a couple more times in the 1940s, with the Christmas fantasy of THE BISHOP'S WIFE (RKO Radio, 1947) opposite Cary Grant, to be their most famous and possibly best collaboration of all time.

As much as ETERNALLY YOURS has played regularly on commercial television since the 1950s, its renewed interest and rediscovery turned up further in the 1980s when shown on public television, availability on video cassette and decades later, on DVD. Cable television showings over the years included the Nik-at-Night Movie, Arts and Entertainment and finally Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: July 25, 2012). Being a public domain title, ETERNALLY YOURS at least is a look back at future Academy Award winners of Loretta Young, David Niven and Broderick Crawford in material quite common then and something worth having a look today. (**1/2)

This movie survived by a very effective layer of gloss, the class and distinctiveness of both Niven and Young's portrayals and the production values. But, oh, the surrounding stuff. Broderick Crawford as a love interest for Ms. Young? Magic acts? What an embarrassing entry this must have been for the star performers in the year of some of the most classic films ever made. This film is one good example of the leads overcoming the liabilities of the vehicle, thus saving the show. Well, sort of. Ms. Young later recounts the scene on the bed with Niven being her favorite subtle type of love scene. Reviewers cite this particular scene as what could have been a censor objection had not the actors handled it with so much sophistication and grace.