Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 11-October-09
Spoiler Rating: High

The Wedding Night (1935)

A Farewell to Arms may have the literary pedigree, but if you want a romantic tearjerker starring Gary Cooper, The Wedding Night is your best bet. This movie touches upon issues of compatibility and culture which make it richer than the average melodrama.

Cooper plays Tony, a novelist from New York whose failing career and extravagant lifestyle compel him to move to an ancestral farmhouse in Connecticut until he can scrounge up some money. His wife Dora (Helen Vinson) accompanies him but becomes so bored that she flees back to the city. Abandoned by his manservant to boot, Tony begins to rely on a neighbor's daughter, Manya (Anna Sten), to look after him. Manya is a Polish beauty whose parents raised her to be an eligible homemaker and a capable farmhand. She is the opposite of Dora, who, like Tony, thinks that waking hours are best spent lounging with a highball.

Even though Tony behaves like a complete cad the first time he gets Manya alone, the two grow closer and closer. (I have learned from old movies that a man was supposed to see how far he could get upon meeting a pretty woman, and the woman was supposed to appear indignant while enjoying a secret gratification at having her attractiveness confirmed. Thereafter the man would behave respectfully in the knowledge of her good breeding. It seems to me that men as gorgeous as Gary Cooper, who could stop a woman's heart at 20 paces, ought to have had a greater responsibility for acting decently right out of the gate. But putting the ethics of attraction aside ….) Tony is inspired by Manya both to begin a new book and to question his relationship with Dora. Should he be with someone who enables his bad habits? Or does he need a no-nonsense helpmeet to keep him honest?

The budding love between Tony and Manya does not sit well with her father, who has brokered a match for her with a Polish swain. This agreement, a raging snowstorm, and the return of Dora combine to bring the situation to a head. The climax occurs on Manya's wedding night when the emotions of everyone involved reach a pitch (and are nicely expressed by the cast). Let it not be expected that the sanctity of marriage, no matter how strained, no matter how achieved, can be challenged without repercussions. In this most cultures agree, so the title is an ironic reference to life's potential for bad timing, misalliances, and bitter lessons.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.