In BORN TO LOVE, Constance Bennett (Doris) and Joel McRea (Barry) are lovers who meet during the last weeks of the First World War. London is portrayed as a city in imminent danger of bombs from aircraft. They meet and predictably fall in love despite the chaos and confusion that surround them. There is an interesting scene in which they make love, one that is prudishly suggested off screen, yet one that in just a few years would have been banned by Hollywood as overtly salacious. The plot is the contrived package of Barry's reported death, forcing Doris to marry another. The second half of the film is less melodramatic and more of an acerbic commentary on the harshness of an English divorce system that allows a rich and titled husband to retain custody of a child over the wishes of a impecunious mother. There is an encoded ideology in the film that does not hide the fact that poor women who marry titled men can expect no mercy or kindness from a patriarchal legal system. BORN TO LOVE nevertheless carries the audience to a satisfying if not predictable conclusion of the need for true love to triumph over formidable societal obstacles.
Review of Born to Love
