I watch a lot of old movies, and normally I watch them by myself. I began watching "When Ladies Meet" (WLM) by myself until I got to the point when the ladies met; then I had to watch the rest with my wife. I simply had to have her opinion on the rest of the movie. I briefed her on all the pertinent information up until the point of the movie I wanted her to see so that she'd have a clear idea of who was who and what was going on.
Before the ladies met we got to know that Jimmie Lee (Robert Montgomery) was in love with Mary Howard (Myrna Loy). The movie began with Jimmie repeatedly proposing to Mary, and Mary repeatedly, yet gently, rejecting him. What was already different about WLM was that Mary never accepted Jimmie's proposal. In just about every movie, when the guy repeatedly proposes to a woman she eventually accepts his proposal. Not so Mary Howard. So what was wrong? Jimmie was a good guy, Mary was a good woman, so there had to be something wrong if she didn't accept his proposal.
There was another man. We didn't know at the time there was another man, but we soon found out.
The other man was Rogers Woodruff (Frank Morgan), a publisher. Mary had reason to be with him because she was writing a book. Rogers was spending a little too much time with Mary for it to all be business and that was because they were having an affair. Rogers was married and Mary knew it, but what does that matter when two people are in love?
This is a repeat theme; that of nothing else mattering when two people are in love. In my opinion it is a stupid theme, but it sounds romantic. I've heard the words "I don't care" or "it doesn't matter" so many times from lovers when their significant other tells them (or tries to tell them) of their past or even their present. It's especially galling to hear when they haven't even heard what the other person has said yet.
Person with a past: "Listen, I've got to tell you something about myself."
Lover: "It doesn't matter. I don't care what you've done."
Person with a past (to himself): "I was going to tell you that I'm a serial killer, but cool I'll just keep that to myself now since it doesn't matter."
This is an extreme example I know, but it illustrates my point; they quite literally have no idea what the other person is about to say. As for me, I want to hear it all, because there are some things that I can't get past and there are some things that might put me in danger by being involved with this person. You don't know. I understand what the movie is trying to convey: 1.) the protagonist would never fall in love with a truly bad person and 2.) love is strong enough to overcome all obstacles, even if one of the obstacles is someone's spouse.
Even though it wasn't being publicized (because society rules dictate that affairs be kept out of the public), Jimmie knew that Rogers was the other man. Jimmie also knew that Rogers was married. What could Jimmie do? Mary was in love.
What is of great interest is the book Mary was writing. She was writing a book about modern and intelligent women. The main character, Eileen, was in love with a married man, and he was in love with her. She didn't want the man to divorce his wife because she wanted to be sure that he was not making a mistake. Eileen would live with the man for a year first, then confront the wife whereby they could intelligently discuss the man they both wanted. Because the wife was modern and intelligent, she relinquished her husband to the new woman realizing that their love is stronger than what she and her husband had.
Yes, Mary was essentially writing a book about herself and how she wanted her affair to play out. Jimmie hated the book, Rogers loved it, but he'd love anything from Mary because he wanted to get in her pants. Mary could write a shopping list and Rogers would claim that it was a masterpiece.
Mary's shallow and brainless friend, Bridget Drake (Alice Brady), invited Mary and Rogers to her country home for the weekend. Brigdie--as they called her--also knew of Rogers marital status, but she struck me as a woman who loved the sensational.
Jimmie found out about the weekend rendezvous and devised a plan to, perhaps, make Mary leave Rogers.
Jimmie played a round of golf with Clare Woodruff (Ann Harding), Rogers' wife. After the match, Jimmie made a call to Bridget's place to get Rogers to leave, then he took a "shortcut" which put him right at Bridgie's front door. Since he was in the neighborhood he may as well stop by and bring Clare Woodruff in with him. And this is when I began to brim with anticipation.
"Here we go! The wife is about to come face-to-face with the mistress!"
But I had to be patient because Jimmie had another idea while he was there at Bridget's country home with Clare Woodruff.
Mary had never met or seen Clare Woodruff and vice versa, so Jimmie told Clare to pretend she was interested in him to perhaps make Mary jealous. To make the gag work Clare would have to keep her last name a secret.
They ran the gag with no success. Mary never showed any jealousy. She was in love with Rogers so Jimmie could go be with whoever he wanted to be with.
Jimmie and Clare would've left Bridget's place except for the nasty storm that appeared. They would have to spend the night which meant Mary and Clare would have more time to get acquainted, which meant they were bound to find out who each other were.
I could barely contain myself.
They began discussing Mary's book, and this is when I had to have my wife watch with me. Mary gave an insight to her own character when she told Clare that she knows when a man is in love. I actually had to pause the movie there.
"Woman you are deluded if you think that you know when a man is in love. One of the many skills of men is that they deceive women regularly to get what they want. That includes making women believe that they love them."
I resumed the movie.
Mary went on to explain her main character Eileen's situation and wanted to know Clare's opinion about Eileen, the man, and the wife. Clare was giving some awesome responses and with each passing word I liked her more and despised Mary more. Clare wasn't anything like the wife Mary dreamed up in her book, but still she didn't know she was talking to Mrs. Woodruff and the suspense was killing me.
Finally, a few absentminded and innocuous words were spoken by Mary that gave her away and made Clare aware of who she was and what was going on. Clare became wholly aware that Mary was speaking of herself when she was speaking of Eileen and her husband was the man.
Then Rogers entered the room unaware that his wife was there.
This is where my wife was greatly disappointed while I was only marginally disappointed because I've seen so many 30's movies.
My wife and I wanted to see fireworks. We wanted to see an explosion of some form: verbal, physical, or both. Now, I happen to know that it is unsophisticated for men or women to go off or have a fight over a spouse they've found cheating. So, for me, it was almost enough just to see Clare find out that her husband was cheating on her with Mary, but for my wife, she wanted more than just a devastated look and some stern words. The discovery was very anticlimactic in that respect.
This is one of the things I don't like about 30's society movies: they were too tame in dealing with infidelity. I've had stronger reactions in being cheated out of two dollars. I'm not looking for murder or bloodshed necessarily, but I am looking for an indication that a person has been hurt so deeply that they want to hurt someone in return. Didn't they love that person? Like Frank Morgan said in "The Kiss Before the Mirror" when he was defending Paul Lukas who'd killed his wife, "The greater the love the greater the hate." When someone you have no feelings for any longer cheats on you, it hurts, yes, because it's still a betrayal, but you're not going to be nearly as crushed as when the one you truly love cheats on you.
So, even though I really like WLM, I can't get behind the tepid reactions of society men and women when they discover they've been cheated on. I want to see passion. They have so much passion when they fall in love, I want to see equal or greater passion when they find out their lover is a cheat. It's a small request, but a significant one. Besides that I thoroughly enjoyed WLM. It brought me to the edge of my seat like no other romance I can think of. Just the way they cleverly brought the two women together and the slow revealing of each other's thoughts and feelings regarding a fictitious yet real affair made the movie a real treasure.
Free on Odnoklassniki.
Before the ladies met we got to know that Jimmie Lee (Robert Montgomery) was in love with Mary Howard (Myrna Loy). The movie began with Jimmie repeatedly proposing to Mary, and Mary repeatedly, yet gently, rejecting him. What was already different about WLM was that Mary never accepted Jimmie's proposal. In just about every movie, when the guy repeatedly proposes to a woman she eventually accepts his proposal. Not so Mary Howard. So what was wrong? Jimmie was a good guy, Mary was a good woman, so there had to be something wrong if she didn't accept his proposal.
There was another man. We didn't know at the time there was another man, but we soon found out.
The other man was Rogers Woodruff (Frank Morgan), a publisher. Mary had reason to be with him because she was writing a book. Rogers was spending a little too much time with Mary for it to all be business and that was because they were having an affair. Rogers was married and Mary knew it, but what does that matter when two people are in love?
This is a repeat theme; that of nothing else mattering when two people are in love. In my opinion it is a stupid theme, but it sounds romantic. I've heard the words "I don't care" or "it doesn't matter" so many times from lovers when their significant other tells them (or tries to tell them) of their past or even their present. It's especially galling to hear when they haven't even heard what the other person has said yet.
Person with a past: "Listen, I've got to tell you something about myself."
Lover: "It doesn't matter. I don't care what you've done."
Person with a past (to himself): "I was going to tell you that I'm a serial killer, but cool I'll just keep that to myself now since it doesn't matter."
This is an extreme example I know, but it illustrates my point; they quite literally have no idea what the other person is about to say. As for me, I want to hear it all, because there are some things that I can't get past and there are some things that might put me in danger by being involved with this person. You don't know. I understand what the movie is trying to convey: 1.) the protagonist would never fall in love with a truly bad person and 2.) love is strong enough to overcome all obstacles, even if one of the obstacles is someone's spouse.
Even though it wasn't being publicized (because society rules dictate that affairs be kept out of the public), Jimmie knew that Rogers was the other man. Jimmie also knew that Rogers was married. What could Jimmie do? Mary was in love.
What is of great interest is the book Mary was writing. She was writing a book about modern and intelligent women. The main character, Eileen, was in love with a married man, and he was in love with her. She didn't want the man to divorce his wife because she wanted to be sure that he was not making a mistake. Eileen would live with the man for a year first, then confront the wife whereby they could intelligently discuss the man they both wanted. Because the wife was modern and intelligent, she relinquished her husband to the new woman realizing that their love is stronger than what she and her husband had.
Yes, Mary was essentially writing a book about herself and how she wanted her affair to play out. Jimmie hated the book, Rogers loved it, but he'd love anything from Mary because he wanted to get in her pants. Mary could write a shopping list and Rogers would claim that it was a masterpiece.
Mary's shallow and brainless friend, Bridget Drake (Alice Brady), invited Mary and Rogers to her country home for the weekend. Brigdie--as they called her--also knew of Rogers marital status, but she struck me as a woman who loved the sensational.
Jimmie found out about the weekend rendezvous and devised a plan to, perhaps, make Mary leave Rogers.
Jimmie played a round of golf with Clare Woodruff (Ann Harding), Rogers' wife. After the match, Jimmie made a call to Bridget's place to get Rogers to leave, then he took a "shortcut" which put him right at Bridgie's front door. Since he was in the neighborhood he may as well stop by and bring Clare Woodruff in with him. And this is when I began to brim with anticipation.
"Here we go! The wife is about to come face-to-face with the mistress!"
But I had to be patient because Jimmie had another idea while he was there at Bridget's country home with Clare Woodruff.
Mary had never met or seen Clare Woodruff and vice versa, so Jimmie told Clare to pretend she was interested in him to perhaps make Mary jealous. To make the gag work Clare would have to keep her last name a secret.
They ran the gag with no success. Mary never showed any jealousy. She was in love with Rogers so Jimmie could go be with whoever he wanted to be with.
Jimmie and Clare would've left Bridget's place except for the nasty storm that appeared. They would have to spend the night which meant Mary and Clare would have more time to get acquainted, which meant they were bound to find out who each other were.
I could barely contain myself.
They began discussing Mary's book, and this is when I had to have my wife watch with me. Mary gave an insight to her own character when she told Clare that she knows when a man is in love. I actually had to pause the movie there.
"Woman you are deluded if you think that you know when a man is in love. One of the many skills of men is that they deceive women regularly to get what they want. That includes making women believe that they love them."
I resumed the movie.
Mary went on to explain her main character Eileen's situation and wanted to know Clare's opinion about Eileen, the man, and the wife. Clare was giving some awesome responses and with each passing word I liked her more and despised Mary more. Clare wasn't anything like the wife Mary dreamed up in her book, but still she didn't know she was talking to Mrs. Woodruff and the suspense was killing me.
Finally, a few absentminded and innocuous words were spoken by Mary that gave her away and made Clare aware of who she was and what was going on. Clare became wholly aware that Mary was speaking of herself when she was speaking of Eileen and her husband was the man.
Then Rogers entered the room unaware that his wife was there.
This is where my wife was greatly disappointed while I was only marginally disappointed because I've seen so many 30's movies.
My wife and I wanted to see fireworks. We wanted to see an explosion of some form: verbal, physical, or both. Now, I happen to know that it is unsophisticated for men or women to go off or have a fight over a spouse they've found cheating. So, for me, it was almost enough just to see Clare find out that her husband was cheating on her with Mary, but for my wife, she wanted more than just a devastated look and some stern words. The discovery was very anticlimactic in that respect.
This is one of the things I don't like about 30's society movies: they were too tame in dealing with infidelity. I've had stronger reactions in being cheated out of two dollars. I'm not looking for murder or bloodshed necessarily, but I am looking for an indication that a person has been hurt so deeply that they want to hurt someone in return. Didn't they love that person? Like Frank Morgan said in "The Kiss Before the Mirror" when he was defending Paul Lukas who'd killed his wife, "The greater the love the greater the hate." When someone you have no feelings for any longer cheats on you, it hurts, yes, because it's still a betrayal, but you're not going to be nearly as crushed as when the one you truly love cheats on you.
So, even though I really like WLM, I can't get behind the tepid reactions of society men and women when they discover they've been cheated on. I want to see passion. They have so much passion when they fall in love, I want to see equal or greater passion when they find out their lover is a cheat. It's a small request, but a significant one. Besides that I thoroughly enjoyed WLM. It brought me to the edge of my seat like no other romance I can think of. Just the way they cleverly brought the two women together and the slow revealing of each other's thoughts and feelings regarding a fictitious yet real affair made the movie a real treasure.
Free on Odnoklassniki.