Perfect Strangers

Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat give wonderful performances in "Vacation from Marriage," a 1945 film directed by Alexander Korda. It's the story of a boring British couple - she's a mousy housewife prone to colds, and he's a mousy accountant who lives by a strict routine. When World War II hits, he joins the Navy and she joins the WRENS. He becomes very healthy, authoritative, and adventurous, and she becomes glamorous and independent. When faced with 10 days leave after nearly three years apart, neither one is looking forward to seeing the other again.

This very enjoyable film is heightened by the performances of the leads, both of whom ably demonstrate their change of personality and appearance after a few years of war. Glynis Johns is very good in a supporting role as well.

Highly recommended.

This is a film on an often unexplored aspect of World War II - how couples grew apart after years of separation due to the service of one or both in the military. What makes this film so unusual is that it is exploring the topic - albeit in a rather light hearted and humorous fashion - at the very end of the war rather than a few years later.

In this case the couple (Deborah Kerr as Catherine Wilson and Robert Donat as Robert Wilson) really don't grow apart as a couple as much as they grow as individuals. They are both mousy plain almost invisible people prior to the war, seemingly happy in their routine. Then in the spring of 1940 Robert enters the British navy and Catherine enters the British equivalent of the WAVEs - the WRENs. There they are both tested, find their courage and their voice, and find the attention of and feel attraction to members of the opposite sex, all the while with each remembering the other as they were before the war and feeling somewhat disappointed at the idea of resuming their mousy existences - and marriage - after the war.

Then comes what should be a happy event - after three years apart both are granted a ten days leave - time enough to reunite and get to know each other again ... or not. I'll let you see what happens as they both return to their prewar flat with all the enthusiasm of the condemned to their execution.

Everything in this production is outstanding - cinematography, makeup, and of course stellar jobs by the entire cast. I would have never thought Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat could ever have generated any chemistry together, but the proof is in the pudding. I highly recommend it.

This is an excellent movie about spouses rediscovering each other. Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr are perfect as a mousy and dull couple who are transformed by the challenges of war and a separation from each other. It's rare to find a movie that focuses on a married couple in this way. This is a film for romantics and, since I am one, I recommend it strongly.

What a wonderful movie!

As is often the case I was drawn to it by the names - Robert Donat, Deborah Kerr, Glynis Johns and Alexander Korda. How can you go wrong? I learned later that this was the flick that made Kerr a star, and understandably so. Glynis Johns is always a delight to the eye.

The story line - a humdrum couple separated and transformed by the war - sounds like the makings for a pretty humdrum soap opera, but the script is very well done and involves us in the stories of these two people as they drift away from each other (or so they think).

The great Alexander Korda's direction is spot on and masterful. Particularly impressive are the cutaway shots from husband to wife as each of them travels home to meet each other on leave after 3 years apart from each other, he in the Navy, she in the Wrens (Britain's naval corps for women). We learn from their conversations with their traveling companions about their apprehensions about reuniting. The scene where they face each other with their doubts is shot completely in the dark, a master stroke, reflecting the fact that they really don't know each other anymore.

It's also a very good snapshot of wartime life in Britain.

Incidentally, it seems the film was originally released in a longer version titled "Perfect Strangers."

Altogether a wonderful find. Thank you Turner Classic Movies.

"Perfect Strangers" was made in war-scarred Britain in 1945 and it has that unmistakable flavour and appeal of the small, b&w 1940's English pictures of the time--trustworthy, tender without being sentimental, sweet, reticent, and positive. The epitome of the wartime film designed to boost people's morale.

Like many pre-50's films that catch my interest, it has the charming buoyancy of that other, (and now otherworldly) WWII era--before Twentieth Century attitudes had crystallized into their currently cold, disaffected, and jaundiced condition that forms our modern outlook. Films like "Perfect Strangers" (also known as "Vacation from Marriage") are the perfect antidote--tiny time capsules of hopefulness, naivete, and innocence that, certainly in the art of the cinema, can't be achieved anymore, no matter what the budget.

Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr are well cast and their performances seem effortlessly on-the-mark in this film. The two play a shy, humdrum, and rather ineffectual couple living in London during the Blitz. Kerr is a glum housewife to the staid, stodgy Donat, who works meekly in London as a bank teller.

Even though around them all is chaos in the city, they are frozen, as it were, in their daily routines: work, eat, sleep. These are two people to whom nothing much ever happens. Their marriage is in a rut but they dont know it. They are vaguely dissatisfied with themselves, but they dont know why. Each is right on the edge of being bored with the another. Certainly they are both bored with their lives.

(This is one of those couples of a type that one still encounters today--a pair of simple, unimaginative souls that, in the first flush of romance, dont envision needing anything more out of life than being married to each other).

But their dull routines are suddenly shaken up by wartime events--both are unexpectedly called to active service. This turn of events falls like a bolt of lightning on the couple. Donat reluctantly enters the Navy as an able seaman, and Kerr becomes a WREN. The story picks up pace from this point on. The two agree to keep in touch and meet whenever they are on leave.

However, both soon have their hands full trying to adjust to the rigors of service life: not just the hazards of wartime but more importantly, the trials of intense, abrupt socialization with their new comrades.

Each undergoes a separate transformation of character: they make friends, win esteem from their peers, prove themselves to be fit and able in all of their duties and even distinguish themselves in the war effort. In short, they thrive in their unexpected "vacation" and in the process, discover all sorts of things about themselves that they never would have guessed previously.

When it comes time for the couple to meet up again, each dreads having the old marriage relations reestablished. Each assumes the other has not changed or developed in any way. (Both Donat and Kerr are even getting tempting offers and romantic attentions from others at this point).

When they meet, in one of the sweetest moments in the film, they fail to even recognize each other. Its how the two get back together which comprises the rest of the storyline of the film.

Its a little treasure of a film: well-made, un-selfconscious, unassuming, and hits its mark perfectly. If you like a simple, honest story about people and people in love, give it a try.