The Runaway Bride (1930) User Reviews

There are just two reasons to watch this...

[AlsExGal · 4/10 · 5 May 2010]

...one, of course, is Mary Astor in a very early role that she handles quite well in spite of the fact that the plot, the direction, and all of her male costars are so wooden that you could probably build a small bonfire out of the lot of them. Mary's good girl looks and natural handling of dialogue cause her seem like the only thing three dimensional on the screen, with one exception.

That exception would be the second reason to watch this film, and the only other female in the cast. For you precode fans out there, look really close at the frumpy seemingly dense Clara, the maid at the sea-side resort - that's Natalie Moorhead looking incredibly unglamorous considering all of her femme fatale appearances in movies like "The Office Wife".

As for the rest of it all I can say is it is ponderously bad. The jist of the plot is that Mary (Mary Astor) is a society girl that has eloped with one of her society crowd only to find out that, after they have registered as man and wife in a seaside hotel but before they actually get married, that her potential husband seems to think that a man's place is in a deck chair - he has no desire to work at all. She changes her mind about the marriage. Her fiancé may be a lay-about but he apparently also has some caveman in him too. He locks her in the hotel room while he goes to find a minister, ignoring her wishes. While she is trying to find a way to escape, her room is invaded first by a mortally wounded jewel thief and then by the cops that think that Mary must be part of the gang that planned the caper.

The police sergeant is a real bully and as for his police work, he makes Barney Fife look like Sherlock Holmes. He seems to really enjoy pushing around women when he isn't having trouble reciting his lines. When he comes across the real bad guys, he practically tips his hat to them - actually I think he does tip his hat to them.

This is real tough sledding to get through, and only the performances of the two female players distinguish it. Stagey beyond belief and with acting technique left over from the silent era, I guess it's almost a toss-up as to whether or not it's worth your time.

How to Marry Mary Astor

[wes-connors · 5/10 · 8 May 2010]

Wealthy young Mary Astor (as Mary Gray) and tall playboy David Newell (as Richard "Dick" Mercer, Jr.) leave New York for Atlantic City, intending to elope. But, when Mr. Newell says he'd rather travel than work, Ms. Astor gets cold feet. Newell locks her in their hotel room, hoping a scandal about the couple running off and not marrying will make Astor change her mind. But, Astor prefers likewise attractive Lloyd Hughes (as George Edward Blaine), who is not only more responsible, but also rich.

While Astor is locked in her hotel room, a jewel thief enters through the window and secretly stashes some pearls in her handbag. The thief dies in a shoot-out, while Astor screams. Then, lead thug Francis McDonald (as Barney Black) arrives, looking for the jewels, which are secretly stolen by moll and maid Natalie Moorhead (as Clara Muldoon). Local lawman Paul Hurst (as Daly) investigates. Astor is wanted by the police, then kidnapped and molested by thugs. Mr. Hughes must save her in time…

This thick-plotted "talkie" was directed by actor Donald Crisp, who did some impressive work with D.W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks, and Buster Keaton. Though a success directing silent films, Mr. Crisp decided to concentrate solely on acting, after turning in one all-talking film. This turned out remarkably well, in the long run. "The Runaway Bride" does have some good locations, featuring 1920s automobiles - those old tires wore out quickly. Astor has a fun rapport with Hughes and Newell.

***** The Runaway Bride (5/4/30) Donald Crisp ~ Mary Astor, Lloyd Hughes, David Newell, Paul Hurst

Oy

[blanche-2 · 5/10 · 15 September 2010]

Mary Astor is "The Runaway Bride" in this early talkie directed by Donald Crisp - and not very well, I might add. The young and beautiful Astor is Mary Gray, who is eloping with her fiancée (David Newell). He drives too fast, is wealthy, and doesn't want to work. Mary wants a husband who will make something of himself. For unexplained reasons, Mary doesn't seem to realize what this man is like until they elope.

Mary breaks off the engagement, and he leaves the suite they've rented to make arrangements for the wedding because he's determined to marry her. While he's gone, a robber enters her room and, unbeknownst to her, hides $80,000 worth of stolen pearls in her purse. He's killed by someone else, and then the police show up. With the help of a maid, Mary makes a run for it and winds up as a cook in the home of a wealthy bachelor (Lloyd Hughes). But the gang still wants their pearls.

Convoluted and directed in a meandering fashion, this film suffers from ETS (early talkie syndrome). The dialogue is said slowly, with pauses in between, throwing the rhythm of the film off. I just saw "Paid" from around the same time, and for some reason, that film doesn't suffer from this. But so many early talkies do, with the actors not used to speaking.

Dated, draggy, and predictable, this film is only worth seeing for Astor, who in spite of the problems, manages to do quite well. Actually the performances aren't bad. But the story! Ouch.

The Bride Should'a Kept Runnin'!!

[tmpj · 8 July 2002]

I didn't see this film from the beginning. If you miss the first few minutes of most films of this vintage, you're lost from then on. This film is worth watching, not because it is a good film or has a good cast. The only one worth seeing here is Mary Astor, and she's a far cry from her Brigid O'Shaugnessey days still to come. This film is worth watching from a filmmakers' vantage point. The plots and characters are virtually negligible. However, Leo Tover's expressionistic photography and angles are exceptional for the period. There are lots of dark images a la Welles ( though still a few years prior to his appearance). The images are silhouetted in this pre-Citizen Kane vehicle, and there is even an early attempt at 'deep focus', which was said to be fathered by Toland, but Tover stops just short of deep focus 1930 in several scenes. The situations are somewhat steamy...there's one scene where the villains are looking for loot that's worth $80,000. Astor has to stand for an off screen frisk at the hands of these desperate men, and the result also suggests that the frisk is full of sex, with the moans and groans and Astor's pleadings off screen suggesting that which cannot be judged otherwise. Not a thrilling movie, nor necessarily a great watch. But viewing can give you insights into where movies were headed as of 1930. Artistically, not a great watch; technologically a worthwhile and informative watch.

Not as good as Juia Roberts of same title but worth watching

[ebg51 · 4/10 · 3 May 2006]

Old films are always worth watching, if you want to be a student of films. It has a young Mary Astor, very beautiful indeed. Donald Crisp is the director. He was a much better actor. The performances are very wooden and stiff which is typical for early talkies. They were still learning how to say dialog. The emotions are overdone physically, because most of the actors came from the silent era where facial expressions and gestures had to replace dialog. Watch Mary Astor in one of her later silents and watch her early talkies. But watching these old films gives us a window into the past that we cannot get any other way.

Like multiple bad movies all tossed together!

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 4 June 2010]

Wow...this is one of the strangest first half hours of any film I have ever seen. Believe it or not, the first 15 minutes of the film have just about NOTHING to do with where the film goes next--and in the process, it strains credibility WAAAY past the breaking point! The film begins with Mary Astor being driven by a fiancé who is an irresponsible thrill-seeker. Again and again, he nearly gets them killed by his reckless and super-high speed driving. Yet, despite this, she STILL plans on marrying the jerk--which irritated me quite a bit.

Eventually, Mary starts to have doubts about following through with the marriage--but his driving (oddly) didn't seem to be the final straw. Here is where things get really, really contrived--and rather crazy!! The fiancé steps out of the room they rented and Mary somehow gets locked in the place. In the meantime, a detective stops by and demands to be let in--and she lies that she's not dressed when all she really needed to say was she couldn't get out of the room! And, by the way, did he stop by and why did she lie?! This made no sense--nor did it make sense when, out of the blue, a criminal climbs into the room between the time the detective knocks on the door and before he returns with a pass key!! What are the odds?!? And, in the process, the criminal shoots a cop who is chasing him!!! So, Mary is locked in a room, a detective stops by BEFORE there is a crime committed, a real crime is then committed and the criminal chooses this particular room for a hideout, the crook shoots and kills another cop before he is also shot dead, but before dying he hides the loot in Mary's bag!!!! If all this doesn't sound utterly ridiculous, it gets worse! After the detective leaves but before he returns with the pass key, the maid arrives and lets Mary out of the room. Now what would any SANE person do? Well, according to this film, you pay the maid a fortune (for 1930) and take a job the maid was going to take in another part of town--going undercover to avoid the cops even though you'd done NOTHING (other than appear in a bad film). All this mess involving the police occurred in only about eight minutes in the film!! The next portion of the film is like yet another film crammed into one very, very busy movie.

Mary is now a cook and the bachelor for whom she is working is very taken by her--and it's PAINFULLY obvious that they will fall in love by the end of the film. Why couldn't they have just kept the first portion of the film with the irresponsible fiancé and this section where she becomes the cook for this swell guy? After all, the intervening portion is just too goofy and stupid...and really undoes the entire film. Overall, the impact is very poor--and a movie that isn't really worth your time unless you LIKE 3rd rate films with occasionally bad sound (which was not terribly uncommon for an early talking picture). It's a bad film for so many reasons...but rarely is it boring!!

Natalie Moorehead Grabs Your Attention!!

[kidboots · 7/10 · 6 June 2011]

When Mary Astor flunked her talkie test (hard to believe but true) Fox, who had been paying her a top salary, didn't want to know her anymore. After a lean time being rejected for jobs she was picked up by Pathe/Radio where she was reunited with Lloyd Hughes for the distinctly underwhelming "The Runaway Bride". 1930 was a strange year for talkies with most of the studios (especially small ones like Pathe) still fine tuning and finding their way. For example a film from Tiffany - "Extravagance" (also with Lloyd Hughes) to me seemed to be a lot more "filmic" and interesting than this one. It just didn't seem to know what it wanted to be.

The credits began with the jaunty song "Lovable and Sweet" so you thought - romantic comedy!! Even the initial scenes of Mary and Dick (Mary Astor and David Newell, an actor who got lost in the early thirties shuffle) driving off to marriage and happiness. But by the time they reach the motel Mary realises what a sap she has been - Dick is a spoiled rich kid who won't work and whose idea of economizing is ordering 8 suits instead of 12!! He then becomes a caveman and when she won't go through with the marriage, locks her in the apartment. Meanwhile the previous tenant, a jewel robber, has just pulled a job and breaks into his old apartment where a gunfight ensues. There are snatches of action but like all early talkies when people engage in conversation the action stops and everyone stands around hoping the hidden mike will pick up their conversation.

The reason to keep watching is Natalie Moorehead. Mary Astor is completely first class but Moorehead just grabs your attention. Initially she plays a typical maid (in these pre-coders) whose IQ would be stretched if it went to double digits. She informs Mary of a job she has just secured as cook to a wealthy businessman, Mr. Blaine (Lloyd Hughes) and Mary gives her $300 to change identities. She wants to escape her husband-to-be and also the robbers and the police, who think she is mixed up in it. When Moorehead reappears it is in another guise completely. She is now a hard talking gun moll (that's more like the Natalie I know) who is after the pearls she thinks Mary has - of course she is planning to double cross everyone!!!

Suddenly everyone turns up at Blaine's house for a showdown, Mary is kidnapped and Blaine is shot in the arm as he attempts to rescue Mary from the gang's clutches, who also have their hideout at the back of a local hospital. Dick just fades out of the movie.

Mary Astor was clearly an asset to any movie, no matter how dire, and talkies revealed she had a beautiful clear voice. Her next movie was class all the way - she played Ann Harding's materialistic sister in "Holiday".

"Mr. Blaine, I've gotten myself into a mess"

[jayraskin1 · 6/10 · 5 January 2017]

Yes, the movie is awful, but there are some redeeming features, and it almost makes it into the "so bad, its good" category. I suspect that this was supposed to be a breezy screwball-comedy, crime-mystery picture. The comedy falls flat and there are too many jumps in the script and jumps in character logic to make the crime-mystery satisfying.

For example, why doesn't Mary Astor's character, Sally Fairchild,just use the fire escape to escape from the room that her runaway bridegroom has locked her in? Obviously the fire escape led down to the street as a criminal uses it to enter her room a few minutes later. The only reason seems to be that Sally couldn't escape from the room because then the criminal could not plant the diamonds on her to start the merry chase that the moves the rest of the plot forward. Then one wonders why Sally doesn't call the police when the criminal and another detective are shot in the room. Again, the answer seems to be, the movie would end right there after fifteen minutes, so she has to do the stupid thing and runaway. The screenwriter might reply that she's a runaway bride and that would be scandalous and disgraceful if the police found out. True, but she should be intelligent enough to figure out that being accused of murder trumps being accused of being a runaway bride. When she confesses to handsome Lloyd Hughes (the Lost World, 1925), "Mr Blaine, I've gotten myself into a mess," it is almost as if she's confessing to the audience how she feels about the movie she's appearing in.

The most redeeming feature and the reason to watch the movie is Mary Astor's wonderful performance. It is so sincere and she looks so beautiful and distressed throughout that you want to rush in and comfort her. It is an "A" performance in a throwaway "B" picture. We feel angry that the script and other characters are not being as sincere as Miss Astor. You feel as if her talents are being ignored and wasted. Thank goodness for John Huston and "the Maltese Falcon," otherwise modern audiences would not have appreciated Mary.

As mentioned by another reviewer, the cinematography is also quite good. It is another element that makes us sad that the script is so lightweight. Leo Tover was only 28 at the time. He would become one of the great cinematographers in Hollywood. He was nominated twice for an Oscar, but sadly, never won. "the Heiress," "the Day the Earth Stood Still," and "Love Me Tender" are some of his most well known works.

I would also note that Paul Hurst seems very comfortable playing a police sergeant. He played a detective or cop in about 20 other movies, although he was most famous for playing in Westerns.

In summary, this is a cheap, frustrating, throwaway movie, but not an uninteresting one.

She may not have been one of the Astor's, but she'll always be high class in my book.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 1 July 2019]

Going from silent screen ingenue to controversial party girl of the 1930s, Mary Astor is best known today for her variety of femme fatale and mother roles in the late 1930's and 1940's, settling nicely into character parts after that. Many people don't realize that the murderess from "The Maltese Falcon" and the mother of Judy Garland in "Meet Me In St. Louis" had a lengthy career that went back to 1926. In her early talkies, it is apparent that she had a lot to learn about the new format of screen acting, but there is something there that makes her both intriguing and likeable. In this pre-code crime drama, she plays a troubled socialite who ends up as a cook for a young man who is afraid of hiring her simply because she's so attractive and so high class. In a sense, this is a variation of a plot that was later utilized as the TV series "The Nanny" with a handsome employer, an eccentric British butler and someone hired for a position that they obviously are not qualified for.

Getting past that coincidence, I was instantly intrigued by the fact that the maid in the apartment building that she rents along with husband-to-be David Newell is the sassy Natalie Moorehead, best known for her dark lady vamp parts. Don't let her maid's outfit fool you. She's got an agenda, especially when she discovers that there's a dead man in Astor's apartment. Astor is immediately discharged from working for the the young Lloyd Hughes but gets him to allow her to cook him one meal. Moorhead arrives as she is about to serve it and precedes to blackmail Astor, interrupted by both the cops and a gang of thieves who Moorehead is associated with.

While there are certain questions to this film that are not properly answered (whether or not Astor is really married or not), that is quite inconsequential because the film is completely entertaining in spite of the fact that the actors speak their lines as if they were rehearsing a stage play. The film starts with a great jazzy early 30's musical theme, and a shot of Astor and Newell driving along a river with gorgeous bridges in the background. The film is stylish and funny, with Edgar Norton stealing every moment with funny faces on top of his amusing droll lines, much like Niles on "The Nanny". It is definitely a product of its time but managed to rise above technical flaws to be truly memorable.

About As Logically Insane As You Can Get

[Michael_Elliott · 14 June 2015]

The Runaway Bride (1930)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Early talkie has Mary Gray (Mary Astor) eloping with Richard Mercer (David Newell) but as the two are looking over their new apartment she realizes that she's made a horrible mistake. Richard locks her up in the apartment and leaves her when later a detective comes pounding on the door. He finally gets in and for some reason at the same time a criminal climbs into the window and kills him. Fearing what to do, Mary gives the maid some cash in exchange for an employment card where Mary goes to hide as a cook for a rich man (Lloyd Hughes) but soon gangsters come after her.

THE RUNAWAY BRIDE is a really, really awful movie that is so incredibly bad that you can't help but be caught up in how bad it is. If you're a fan of these early talkies then you already know that more times than not the director and cast members were more concerned about the voices getting recorded than anything else. That's certainly the case here because there's absolutely no style to mention and it's clear that director Donald Crisp was just filming scenes without putting too much logical sense into them.

As you can tell from my plot description, the story is about as stupid as you can get and I only revealed half of it! The first ten minutes of this movie are downright insane as one illogical thing after another happens. For starters, why does Mary lie to the detective when he comes to the door? Why does she really need to run? What did she see in this guy to begin with? Why are the gangsters so stupid? There are so many logical issues with this movie that you can't help but think they weren't working off of a screenplay and if this was from an actual screenplay, you've gotta wonder what powder was going around RKO at the time. The story is so insane that it actually keeps you glued to the screen just so you can see how much worse it gets.

Astor, as you'd expect, is good in her role but you somewhat see her struggling to make anything out of the character because she has nothing to work with. Hughes is good in his role as is Paul Hurst as the cop trying to figure everything out. Sadly, the actors just can't overcome this horrid screenplay and in the end THE RUNAWAY BRIDE really is one of the worst films from this period.