The Man I Married

Carol Hoffman, an art critic, seems to be happily married to Eric; they lead a somewhat happy existence in New York. When they decide to pay a visit to Germany, she immediately notices the changes that had befallen that country in the eve of WWII. Her husband, though, finds all the changes to his liking, as he considers how advanced his homeland has become.

Eric becomes interested in the Nazi party because of his involvement with Frieda, an attractive woman who clearly thinks Hitler and his cohorts are in the right path to solve all their problems. Carol realizes to what extent the new system has played on Eric and decides to take their young son back to America. Her father in law is horrified by what he notices Eric is becoming, and he wants to set his hon straight about a little family secret the younger man is not aware of.

This film has some interesting aspects in that it points out how a totalitarian regime can be dangerous for a country. History proves how devastating the situation in Germany was. Director Irving Pichel guides the proceedings with his usual style to create a powerful melodrama.

Joan Bennett, who plays Carol, is one of the assets of the film. The other is Francis Lederer, who plays Eric, the man that is dazed by the Germany he suddenly discovers. Anna Sten is also effective as Frieda, the ambitious woman who is horrified at the end when she discovers the secret about Eric. Venerable Otto Kruger appears as the patriarch Henrich Hoffman, and Lloyd Nolan appears as the American reporter who befriends Carol and warns her about the impending changes in Germany.

The film will not disappoint.

A seldom-known aspect of US history that most Americans don't know is that a law was enacted in the 1930s that made it illegal--YES, illegal for the studios to favor one side or the other in the European conflict that became WWII. Studios were forbidden to get involved and these companies all followed along with the law--seeing neutrality as a patriotic ideal. Part of it, I am sure, is that neutrality could insure that US films would STILL be rented in Europe (regardless who wins--neutrality guarantees the studios will deal with the victor). However, by late 1938 and into 1939, some brave studio execs started to balk at this. After all, the Nazis had proved themselves to be monsters--and the studios were beginning to take sides--law or not! While "The Man I Married" is not among the first of these anti-Nazi films from the US, it is one of the better ones and holds up well today.

Carol and Eric Hoffman (Joan Bennett and Francis Lederer) are living in the States when the movie begins. Eric was born in Germany but has lived in America a decade. Carol is an American--born and raised. The Hoffmans take their son to Germany for a visit and soon Mrs. Hoffman is aghast at the hate and viciousness she sees. What's worse...over time, she sees her husband buying into the Nazi rhetoric more and more. Pretty soon she's worried...can she even get out of Germany. And, more importantly, can she do so with her young son?

This movie doesn't pull punches. It talks about Dachau, prisoners being murdered in the camps and chalking it up to things like Apendicitis, Storm Troopers abusing non-Aryans and more. As I already said, though, it's not like any of this was much of a surprise to audiences, as by 1940 the war had been raging a year. Still, it's very well written and acted and holds up very well today. Nearly as good as contemporary films like "The Mortal Storm".

The Man I Married released in 1940 has its plot set in 1938 after the Reich had taken Austria and Czechoslovakia and the world was waiting out its last year of peace. Joan Bennett stars with Francis Lederer who may have rehearsed for this role playing the title role in Confessions Of A Nazi Spy the year before.

Lederer is a German who had settled in America and married an American girl Bennett and they have a young son in Johnny Russell. They hear that his father Otto Kruger is getting on in years and his business in the old country is falling apart. He wants his son to return to the old country and help straighten things out.

So Lederer packs his family up and returns to Germany and he get enthralled with Hitler. He's taken with the fine industrial machine that the Nazi state has made and feels pride in his nationality. His father of the older generation is not so impressed. Bennett is frightened by her surroundings and she gains a sympathetic ear in correspondent Lloyd Nolan.

She's got more problems than that. Lederer and her have grown apart and he's taken up with a Third Reich true believer in Anna Sten. You remember that Samuel Goldwyn made three attempts to make her a star and couldn't sell her. A pity because in The Man I Married she really stands out as the fanatical Nazi woman. She'd have made a great Magda Goebbels in a film.

The Man I Married was also unique in that it tackled anti-Semitism in a very dramatic climax scene. Darryl F. Zanuck and 20th Century Fox deserve a lot of credit for making this most timely film in 1940.

American Carol (Joan Bennett) is married to German immigrant Eric Hoffman (Francis Lederer), and the two decide to travel to Germany, along with their young son, to settle some business matters and to see the country. While Carol has heard some rumblings about Nazi abuses of power and the use of concentration camps, she's shocked and appalled by the extent of it, while Eric feels a renewed sense of pride in what he sees as his homeland returning to prominence. Carol begins to fear that she's losing Eric to the Nazi ideology, even while her contact with an American reporter (Lloyd Nolan) is putting a spotlight on just how far gone the Nazis and Germany really are.

This was controversial, inflammatory stuff at the time of its release, and Fox pulled the picture from theaters soon afterward. It's certainly one of the most unequivocal anti-Nazi American movies from before the war that I've seen. Bennett is good as the increasingly alarmed surrogate stand-in for Americans unaware or unwilling to face what was happening in Europe. Anna Sten is very hissable as the fanatical Nazi adherent that tries to sway Lederer's mind and heart.

This is really a very fine movie, something I did not expect from the leads, neither of whom have ever done much for me. If you watch it thinking of the time of its release - August 1940, by which time France had signed an armistice with Germany and Germany occupied two thirds of France while getting ready to start its assault on England - it seems particularly ominous.

The one part that could have used a lot more work in the script is explaining why Eric Hoffman, the male lead, would have fallen for the propaganda of the Nazi regime, especially after having lived in the U.S. for so many years. We never know if it is the ideology that has swayed him, or the attractive blonde (played well by Anna Sten).

The movie does a fine job of letting us see only slowly the horrors - some of them - of the Nazi regime, first letting us hear only the positive propaganda.

All the acting is good.

There is no real love story here, which, I suppose, is one reason the movie failed to leave a mark. But it is well-made, and must have come as a wake-up call to at least some Americans who believed, as so many still did in 1940, that the war in Germany was none of our business.

Definitely worth watching. You won't be bored.