Seemingly happily married, the young and attractive Phillips Holmes and Diana Churchill are victimized by jealousy, nosy landlords, interfering ex's and especially their own stupidity. There's no taking sides here. Both are at fault, with Holmes wanting Churchill to quit her obvious part time job and her interfering in his business career since her ex (Romney Brent) is now his partner. Their fights are vicious, and even violent, and she could definitely be considered physically abused while both, to be honest, psychologically abuse the other. It's shocking to see this in a 1930's movie, one of the rare opportunities to see the truth of a marriage lived in hell, with occasional visits to heaven, which happens every time they make up, both apologizing and taking the blame. After a while she seems to be placating him, changing her tone and becoming more passive/aggressive in her attempts to keep the marriage together, especially since she is obviously not ready to start family.
So you have a powerful classic drama about why marriages don't often work, and this is the type of thing you would see in a 1960's play and not expect in a 1930's movie. They could easily be considered a young version of George and Martha from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" because you can just see them having math sort of contemptible relationship years later. Both Holmes and Churchill are outstanding, while Brent and Carol Goodner provide good support as secondary charsxters having their own marital conflicts. As the landlords played for laughs, Charles Paton and Dora Webster represent the elderly couple always in conflict, with Paton a total wimp who still manages to contradict the hypocritical Webster, a real harridan who gets jeers instead of chuckles, although I did have fun laughing at her. I would have to say that this gets so realistic in a frightening way that it becomes somewhat depressing. In spite of that, it's frequently mesmerizing and thus worth watching.
So you have a powerful classic drama about why marriages don't often work, and this is the type of thing you would see in a 1960's play and not expect in a 1930's movie. They could easily be considered a young version of George and Martha from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" because you can just see them having math sort of contemptible relationship years later. Both Holmes and Churchill are outstanding, while Brent and Carol Goodner provide good support as secondary charsxters having their own marital conflicts. As the landlords played for laughs, Charles Paton and Dora Webster represent the elderly couple always in conflict, with Paton a total wimp who still manages to contradict the hypocritical Webster, a real harridan who gets jeers instead of chuckles, although I did have fun laughing at her. I would have to say that this gets so realistic in a frightening way that it becomes somewhat depressing. In spite of that, it's frequently mesmerizing and thus worth watching.