Daily Archives: March 10, 2022

Merrily We Go to Hell
Directed by Dorothy Arzner
Written by Edwin Justus Mayer from a play by Cleo Lucas
1931/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Joan Prentice: I spent the morning realizing that we’re living in a modern world – where there’s no place for old-fashioned wives. You seem to want a modern wife and that’s what I’m going to be. You see, I’d rather go merrily to Hell with you than alone.

The sad story of marriage to an alcoholic, expertly delivered by Sylvia Sidney and Fredric March.

Jerry Corbett (March) is an alcoholic newspaper reporter/aspiring playwright.  One night he chances to meet heiress Joan Corbett at a party.  He is attracted and she appears to be swept off her feet despite his evident inebriation.  During their courtship, Jerry lets Joan down over and over again.  Joan’s father violently objects to Jerry and opposes their eventual plans to marry.  But Joan remains madly in love and he realizes he can’t stop them and goes with the flow.

Joan helps Jerry sober up, settle down, and finish writing his play, which is about his breakup with his ex-girlfriend.  They are happy during this time.  Then the play is accepted for production.  The leading lady is the ex-girlfriend and soon Jerry is off the wagon again. The couple moves to New York.

The play is a great success.  Jerry shows up very late and totally blotto to his own cast party.  He takes up with the ex-girlfriend again, making no effort to disguise this from Joan.  So Joan decides that what is good for the gander is good for the goose.  She begins drinking and starts going to drinking parties with other men, including Charlie Baxter (Cary Grant).  Things sort of go downhill from there.  Can Hollywood pull out a happy ending?

I have long maintained that Fredric March makes the most believable drunk in classic cinema and Sylvia Sidney is a favorite.  Arzner saw that the production of this sad story was told with realism and a light touch on the melodrama.  Very worth seeing.

Restoration trailer – English with French subtitles

Other Men’s Women
Directed by William A. Wellman
Written by Maude Fulton and William K. Wells
1931/US
Warner Brothers
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Bill White: I love you, Lily. And I want ya. And if you are here or near me, I’ll take you. You understand? I’ll take you.

William Wellman blends exciting railway action with a love triangle made more palatable by the excellent acting of all concerned.

Bill White (Grant Withers) is a hard-drinking locomotive engineer and ladies’ man.  He is currently hanging out with drinking buddy Marie (Joan Blondell) who is after him to marry her.  He shares duties in the same locomotive with colleague and best friend Jack (Regis Toomey). Both are railroad men through and through.  Jack thinks Bill should settle down and invites him to dinner at his home with his wife Lily (Mary Astor).  Bill eventually moves in with the couple and quits drinking.

There has been an unspoken sexual tension between Bill and Lily.  One day, they declare their love and seal it with a kiss.  Bill decides the best thing to do is move out which leads Jack to figure out something is going on with Bill and Lily.

This revelation occurs on the locomotive and the two begin fist fighting furiously.  In the process, Jack is thrown off the train.  The incident leaves him blind.

Bill begins drinking again and is back with Marie.  I think I’ll stop here except to say that the climax of the film is an unbelievable but spectacular.  With James Cagney in a small speaking part as one of the railway workers.  He even does a little dance (see below)!

I love Mary Astor and I thought she was very appealing in this.  It’s Grant Withers’s movie though and he acquitted himself admirably.  As did everyone else.  If the fairly standard tragic love triangle is pretty routine, there is all that spectacular train action to enjoy.