Drôle de mariage

"A Lady To Love" (1930) with some key differences.

Tony (Charles Laughton) is a simple yet successful Italian immigrant who owns a large grape farm in California. After he sees beautiful waitress Amy (Carole Lombard) during a trip to the city, Tony falls hopelessly in love, and he enlists his best friend and foreman Joe (William Gargan) in composing love letters to Amy to convince her to marry Tony. They succeed, but when Tony sends a picture of Joe instead of himself to Amy, things get complicated, as she arrives already in love with the image of Joe to only be told that the real Tony is something altogether different

I recently watched A Lady to Love from 1930, the earlier screen version of this story starring Edward G. Robinson, Vilma Banky and Robert Ames in the lead roles, so I spent a lot of time watching this version and comparing the two. This later version is better, but there are several changes to story points: in the early version, Amy marries Tony immediately upon arrival, while in this version they never actually get around to it. Tony gets injured in both versions, but the circumstances and outcomes are much different. And one very pertinent plot point which I won't spoil was absent in the early version, but very much a factor in this later one.

Lombard is very good in a serious role, and while Laughton is very broad, his role calls for it and his scenery chewing is acceptable, and not nearly as bad as Robinson's was. William Gargan earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, although his role is really a lead, and he even has more screentime than Laughton. Gargan is good, but not in a flashy way, and his role is one that seems like an odd choice for a nomination. It may have been a career acknowledgment, as he'd been a popular B-level leading man since the late 1920's. He was the real deal, too, when it came to tough guy roles, as he'd been both a bootlegger and a detective before he started in pictures. His movie career ran out of steam by the late 1940's, when he moved to radio and had a big hit with Martin Kane, Private Eye, a role that he also played on TV in the late 50's. A battle with throat cancer left him without a voice by 1960, although he lived until 1979.

The first work I see by Garso Kanin, he directs this film that goes from a comedy tone to a gray love drama. It stars Charles Laughton and Carole Lombard supported by William Gargan.

It is a film that stays in the middle, it starts out well, it is entertaining but it develops taking as understood situations that are not clear. The development of the Lombard and Gargan couple is taken by the hair, there is no moment where they connect and unless a deep problem arises. The problem of pregnancy is taken for granted and one does not know when it happened.

Remarkable performances although the script did not help much and the 3 characters are flat without much to say. Charles Laughton is surprising because at first it seems not to be very interesting and ends up being the moral. Carole is fine and looks as natural as possible despite the forced scenes she's in. Gargan in this role that begins lonely and mysterious but is halfway through development. He is nominated for 'Best Supporting Actor' at the Oscars and is the only nomination the film gets.

Charles Laughton goes sort of over the top in this little movie. The plot is reminiscent of "Postman Always Rings Twice", i.e. sweet lil' immigrant meets girl & loses girl to employee, but without James M Cain's violence. Laughton's Tony really is a most happy fella, & Lombard is as usual, steamy. Totally by chance, I happened to do a double bill of this and the 1935 Mutiny On The Bounty. I should have added Ruggles Of Red Gap, Hunchback, Hobson's Choice, and Witness For The Prosecution for a total Laughton immersion. This was filmed on location in an incredibly rural Napa Valley, and if you're familiar with Napa Valley, you may recognize what is now the Calistoga Inn/Napa Valley Brewing as Tony's local cantina/bar. I'd like to see a cleaned up version of this, as the print I saw was verrry dark. Good little movie.

even taking into account the context of its time, this is incredibly dated, morals-wise. also, it strains credibility that the female protagonist (amy) would stay initially, stay later, stay longer, proclaim her love for (the wrong guy), and then leave w/o getting together w/who she wanted all along. just seems really dopily contrived. "she DIDN'T know what she wanted" would be a more apt title. also, the whole plot revolving about her pregnancy just comes from out of nowhere and dominates the proceedings as if it was 1750 in puritan new england. i really wanted to like this film; i'd heard it was good - - but it's really pretty hard to take. as for tony; he's similarly unbelievable, a 1-dimensional character, until he explodes, and then he becomes 2-dimensional (still 1 short). OK i'm done

This is the third filmed version of Sidney Howard's play. Previously this was filmed a THE SECRET HOUR (1928) with Pola Negri and Jean Hersholt and as A LADY TO LOVE (1930) with Vilma Banky and Edward G. Robinson.

Here, Charles Laughton plays the Italian Tony, a successful grape grower in Napa Valley. He goes to San Francisco and is smitten with a waitress named Amy (Carole Lombard) and decides to marry her. Back home he gets his pal (William Gargan) to write a letter. She answers back. Eventually they send a picture and invite her to Napa.

Unfortunately they send a picture of Gargan. But Lombard has nothing to go back to but her dreary and demeaning job so she stays. Despite her best efforts she falls for Gargan right under Robinson's nose.

Basically a love triangle story, there's enough humor to defuse the slightly clichéd story. Lombard give a great performance as the feisty Amy. Laughton is hammy and loud but a pleasure to watch. Gargan won an Oscar nomination for the hapless Joe, torn between his devotion to Tony and his love for Amy.

Supporting cast includes Harry Carey as the doctor, Frank Fay as the priest, Victor Kilian as the photographer, Janet Fox as Mildred, and the film debuts of Karl Malden and Tom Ewell.

Good location shooting in Napa Valley opens up the film and adds a nice touch.