This Woman Is Mine (1935) User Reviews

"I'll take care of you as long as I live, and that's going to be a very long time."

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 22 May 2021]

"I don't know what to say" says the orphaned Benita Hume when her guardian, lion tamer Gregory Ratoff, proposes to her. How about no?, because it's obvious when she exchanges vows with him, that she doesn't want to do it. "I feel much more at home with my whip in my hand", Ratoff says at the reception, giving an indication of what this marriage is going to be like. He's obviously jealous of the younger John Loder who makes an unwelcome entrance to the reception, and the marriage is obviously off to a rocky start.

We've seen this plotline several times, mainly a series of films at Warner Brothers related through the original story ("Tiger Shark", "Manpower"), and indeed, veteran character actor Ratoff does seem to be emulating various older leading men of the time such as the star of those movies, Edward G. Robinson and MGM's Wallace Beery. Ratoff is certainly no young ladies' romantic dream, filled with humor when happy and getting his way, but potentially deadly when crossed.

A lavish look into the Russian national circus, this was better than I thought with its very grand scale coming off of a B movie budget. Ratoff is the whole show, stealing the scene from the younger romantic leads with veteran character actor Richard Bennett (father of Constance and Joan) excellent as Ratoff's friend, the only person unafraid to tell him the truth, not only about his wife but about himself as well. Very good if you go in expecting a melodramatic tragedy where nobody will end up happy, at least until the obvious conclusion.

He's With The Archangels Now

[boblipton · 5/10 · 31 March 2020]

Lion tamer Gregory Ratoff adopts an orphaned girl, and the entire circus helps raise her. When she has grown into Kathryn Segava, she marries Ratoff...and immediately falls in love with new audience favorite, John Loder.

Yes, it's that old story, although usually it's the circus's leading clown who is cuckolded. Ratoff is pretty good as the arrogant, self-confident lion tamer, but everyone else is ok at best, with Benita Hume getting a small but showy role.

The overwrought, romantic score is attributed to Alexis Arkhangelsky, and therein lies an enigma. He is credited with the scores of four movies, two of which had Ratoff showing up in the credits. Other than that, there's no sign of the fellow. Google suggested I wanted Aleksander Arkhangelsky, and there was a man that way, but he is credited as a composer of church music, and died in 1924. So that's a mystery. Also, why is one of the alternate titles "18 Minutes"?

What do "This Woman is Mine", "18 Minutes" and "King of the Circus" have to do with each other?

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 20 May 2021]

"18 Minutes" is also known as "This Woman is Mine" and "King of the Circus" and is a very cheap British B-movie. I say very cheap because although the acting is good, as you watch the story, it's obvious they cut a few corners to save money. In particular, to have the lion tamer 'tame' a lion, he's CLEARLY superimposed across the picture...so obvious that it even looked very cheap back in 1935.

The story begins with Nikita the Fearless (Gregory Ratoff) working as a lion tamer at a circus. Two things soon happen to him...he adopts an orphan girl and raises her. He also buys a lion with a bad reputation...one that killed its previous tamer. The idea is that it will bring in tons of customers to know he's tamed a man-killer!

Years pass. Lida has grown into a lovely woman and men are certainly noticing her. Now here's where it gets a bit weird. Nikita marries his adopted daughter because he's jealous of these other men...plus, he's obvious got issues. She agrees to the marriage but it's obvious her heart isn't in it. Soon she meets a handsome man and he sweeps her off her feet...and it's NOT Nikita! What's this odd man going to do about this? Well, considering he married his daughter, you can only assume the worst with this strange, freaky man.

This is not an especially great film. The biggest problem with it, aside from the lion taming scenes, is that Nikita is practically impossible to like....not only because he has the hots for his daughter (I know...she's not biologically his...but this is still nasty) but because he's a bit of a jerk otherwise. As for Lida, she really doesn't have a lot of personality....like some sort of piece of toast. Unless you love circus-incest pictures, this one is easy to skip.