The Bride Walks Out

So-So Stanwyck Fare
This was one of only 5 minor projects Stanwyck committed to in the emotionally turbulent year following her divorce from Frank Fay. It proved a solid box office hit, but it hasn't aged gracefully. The movie begins with snappy promise: Stanwyck is a disillusioned bride whose new husband can't afford to support her in the manner to which she is accustomed. Enter a charming and very eligible drunk in the form of Robert Young. Unfortunately, the movie veers sharply away from any interesting developments in order to chastise Stanwyck - and every woman - for entertaining the least notion of dissatisfaction with a borderline-abusive spouse. A wife's proper place, afterall, is in the home, even if that home is no more than a squalid rat hole and the husband a bore and a boor. For roles far more worthy of her sparkling talents, check out THE LADY EVE and BALL OF FIRE and CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT.

Anything
Anything Barbara Stanwyck did in the 30's and 40's is wonderful. She was a terrific comic actress - one of the FEW truly gifted actresses.

Gene Raymond as Fred Flintstone...
... in a production that is an OK time passer but is based on entirely archaic ideas on the subject of marriage. If I'm going to watch a film from 1936, I guess I should be prepared to deal with the values of 1936, but this is just too much.

Mike Martin (Gene Raymond) is an engineer who basically nags model and long-time girlfriend Carolyn (Barbara Stanwyck) into marrying him. The arguments begin at their quickie civil marriage ceremony and continue as Mike's estimate that $35 a week is enough for them to get by on is incorrect. Plus no wife of his is going to work! It's a Martin tradition. Before this film is over I felt like if it was a Martin tradition to walk a tightrope strung between high rises on your 30th birthday Mike would be up there doing it. He's not exactly a deep thinker.

Meanwhile, Carolyn is stuck making Mike's maxims work. Mike gets to live the dream of supporting a wife that doesn't work, but his dream is really a mirage. Carolyn is the one...

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