Men Call It Love (1931) User Reviews

An OK little precode potboiler

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 13 October 2008]

This is one of those high society precodes in which everybody is cheating on their own spouse with someone else's spouse. Adolphe Menjou plays one of the few single people in this high society group, but he still has quite the taste for the married women. Leila Hyams plays Connie, Menjou's latest woman of interest. However, she is in love with her husband and doesn't care to enter into an affair. Her husband, Jack, has had one affair with a showgirl that Connie doesn't know about. Mix all of this together and you have a variation on the more famous "The Divorcée". It's just a shame that Adolphe Menjou, the most interesting actor in the cast, doesn't spend more time on screen.

The studios all made movies like this during the Depression - films about wealthy people who had nothing better to do but play musical chairs with their love lives with not a glimpse of the dire situation that was playing out in the nation. This one is worth sitting through if you run into it, but there is really nothing to distinguish it other than Hyam's always adequate performance in whatever script she was thrown into and, of course, the ever-dashing Menjou.

Good for its honesty about sex and adultery, but average performances

[gbill-74877 · 6/10 · 23 October 2016]

When divorce is mutually agreed upon by one couple who announce it happily at a party, it causes others to think about their own marriages. One of their guests, Helen (Mary Duncan), is already cheating on her mild-mannered husband with Tony (Adolphe Menjou, who reminds me of Edward Norton), but the two confess to one another that they've gotten bored with one another. The end of their affair is as amicable as the end of the marriage they've just witnessed. Everyone seems blithe and reasonable about these things, which would ordinarily trigger a lot of passion.

Meanwhile, Jack (Norman Foster) has been rumored to cheat on his wife Connie (Leila Hyams), who loves a good flirtation herself, but the two are committed to one another until she catches him in bed with Helen. She then considers taking Tony up on his advances to her. Jack tries to enforce the double standard, telling her "This is a man's game, and you can't play it", but she responds by telling him "You play around as much as you like, and so will I." The movie should get a little credit for its openness about divorce, adultery, and a women's right to sexual freedom. The performances are pretty average, though, and the movie cops out a bit at the end.

Doesn't Age Well

[boblipton · 5/10 · 13 October 2008]

Edgar Selwyn, one of the people who actually founded the studio that would become MGM ("Goldwyn" was originally an amalgamation of his and his brother's name with co-owner Samuel Goldfish, who liked it so well he renamed himself after the studio), directed this rather stagy version of a story about fidelity and infidelity among the well-to-do. Norman Foster, who would go on to become a good B director, is fairly weak and most of the players are rather mannered in their performances. As usual, Adolph Menjou gives a fine performance as Tony Minot, a philanderer who only falls in love with married women.

Harold Rossen as the DP does his usual fine job, moving the camera around lightly to maintain composition. The palette, though, is that stark black-and-white that makes everything look as if the film had been overdeveloped. MGM would abandon it in a couple of years

This certainly IS a Pre-Code picture!

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 18 September 2015]

A lot of folks assume that back in the old days, films were super- puritanical and chaste. Well, that might be said about many of the films released after mid-1934, but before that things were a lot different--particularly in the early 30s. The studios had a production code which supposedly mandated 'nice behavior' up until 1934, but the studios routinely ignored it and made films with plots involving adultery, fornication, abortion, prostitution and the like. They also featured cursing and nudity in a few cases...and some of it is pretty shocking when seen today. But the public outcry and loss of revenue eventually resulted in a long list of dos and don'ts and the film soon were highly sanitized.

"Men Call It Love" is one of these Hollywood films that came out before the tough Production Code of 1934. It's pretty obvious, as the theme in this one is adultery--and practically all the folks in this film are either married and cheating on their spouses or single and DEFINITELY playing the field! Subtle, it ain't!

The film features Leila Hyams as Connie...the only married person not cheating in this film. However, when she eventually realizes that her husband is a weak, no-good cheater, she decides to make up for lost time and chases playboy, Tony (Adolph Menjou), like a dog chasing after a pork chop! What's going to become of Connie-- especially because it seems like, down deep, this sort of life isn't for her. Will she be happy with her new lascivious lifestyle-- especially after she proposes to her husband that they adopt an open marriage?

In some ways this is a pretty good film, in other ways it isn't. The plot is certainly unusual and the acting is pretty good. But the film also is incredibly talky and rather slow--and perhaps too subtle. If it had been MORE sensationalistic and sleazy like some of its competition, it probably would have been a lot more entertaining. It also has an oddly confusing message that manages to be both pro-marriage AND pro-adultery (provided you don't get caught).

Who went to see this picture?

[richard-1787 · 3/10 · 9 July 2016]

That was all I could think about as I sat through the superficial dialogue in this picture full of superficial wealthy characters. Who in 1931, when the Depression was at its worst and those who still had jobs worried about holding on to them, would have wanted to see the idle and superficial rich banter in a not clever way about their love lives? None of the characters here is interesting. Most of them are pretty disagreeable.

There were few wealthy people in the USA in 1931, certainly not enough to provide a return on even a small budget picture like this one. Who else went to see it? Who did MGM think would buy tickets?

Men Call it Love review

[JoeytheBrit · 5/10 · 8 May 2020]

The title hints at the duplicity of cheating husbands, but it's a wayward wife who causes most of the misery in this frank, but mostly breezy, look at sexual promiscuity amongst the upper class. Norman Foster's the hapless husband on whom she sets her sights, much to the distress of loving wife Leila Hyams. And the dapper Adolphe Menjou lounges around in the hope of providing Hyams with a shoulder to cry on.

Far Better Than You Would Expect.

[jayraskin1 · 9/10 · 17 September 2019]

I wasn't expecting much, but as a fan of Adolphe Menjou and Norman Forster, I decided to give it a shot. I was surprised that the movie was really well done. It was a beautiful humanistic morality tale. All the characters were actually quite realistic and complex. Although they all behave badly and thoughtlessly at moments, the four lead characters (Menjou, Forster, Leila Hyams, and Mary Duncan) are quite sympathetic, forgivable for their mistakes, and genuinely nice people.

As many pre-code pictures did, this one examines two morally contrasting couples and there reactions to the modern-day (for 1932) pressures of marriage. Adolphe Menjou plays the sophisticated Don Juan golf pro who seduces the wealthy wives. He is fun-loving but does have his own code of morality. He won't seduce a woman unless the husband is a cad and deserves it. Norman Forster is usually laid back, but here he is positively aggressive, telling Menjou to "Go to blazes" when he turns to seduce his wife, Connie. Leila Hyams, famous for "Isle of Lost Souls," and "Freaks" is positively delightful as Connie, a woman who is totally devoted to her husband, until she sees his infidelity with his own eyes. Equally good is Mary Duncan. She makes a lot of great wisecracks about how weak her husband is and after failing to get herself seduced by Menjou goes after her friend Connie's husband. Both Forster and Duncan seem totally spontaneous and seem to be caught up in the moment, which is really how most sexual affairs happen. The movie is extremely sophisticated morally and seems to put the goodness of people before any hard and fast rules of morality. The movie was written by Vincent Lawrence (who wrote "Cleopatra," 1934) from his own stage play, and directed by Edgar Selwyn, who had an amazing and dynamic career as an actor/director and producer on Broadway and in Hollywood. In 1913, he started a movie company with a man named Goldfish, who took part of Selwyn's last name and went on to produce movies under the name of Goldwyn when he later became a founder of MGM.