The first movie of the year
Jan. 1st, 2009 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicollTurned out to be Theodora Goes Wild, a 1936 comedy starring Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas (who seems to have been a sort of low-rent William Powell). Dunne plays a small town woman who has a secret life as a best selling author and Douglas plays the young man [1] who after meeting her once decides to track her down and force her to admit she wants more out of life than a small town filled with snoopy, gossiping aunts can offer.
Ah, romance. It's so much like stalking. Had I been her, I'd have buried his body something out in the woods soon after the interminable whistling scene.
The twist comes when [spoilers]
She finally admits that he is right, that she is unhappy with life in Lynntown and more than that she loves him. He immediately leaves town because, as she finds out, he is married to a wife he stays with only because the scandal would embarass his politician father. In fact, he's more constrained by the expectations of his family than she ever was, so she sets about returning the favour he did for her despite his loud and prolonged protestations.
The second half of the movie goes a long way towards making up for the first half, which was filled with "there, there, dear. I know what you should want so stop complaining" moments.
1: He's the artist who does all of the covers for her books, as it turns out. She doesn't seem to think much of his art, or at least his inability to draw enough cloth to cover all or even a majority of the women in his paintings.
Ah, romance. It's so much like stalking. Had I been her, I'd have buried his body something out in the woods soon after the interminable whistling scene.
The twist comes when [spoilers]
She finally admits that he is right, that she is unhappy with life in Lynntown and more than that she loves him. He immediately leaves town because, as she finds out, he is married to a wife he stays with only because the scandal would embarass his politician father. In fact, he's more constrained by the expectations of his family than she ever was, so she sets about returning the favour he did for her despite his loud and prolonged protestations.
The second half of the movie goes a long way towards making up for the first half, which was filled with "there, there, dear. I know what you should want so stop complaining" moments.
1: He's the artist who does all of the covers for her books, as it turns out. She doesn't seem to think much of his art, or at least his inability to draw enough cloth to cover all or even a majority of the women in his paintings.
