THE MAN I MARRIED (1940)

In the summer of 1938, Carol (Joan Bennett) and her German husband Eric (Francis Lederer) decide to head to Germany for a bit of a working vacation—his aging father needs help selling his factory. When Dr. Gerhardt finds out they're going, he gives them a bundle of cash to pass along his brother who is in a concentration camp in Dachau. Carol, Eric and their young son Ricky arrive in Bremerhaven, met by the lovely Frieda, a friend of the family. While Carol sees how bad things are—the concentration camps for political prisoners, the stifling of criticism of the government, the constant spying on friends and neighbors and the mistrust that breeds—Eric begins to express admiration for the Nazis, something that bothers both Carol and Eric's father Heinrich. When Carol tries to deliver the money to their doctor's brother, she is told he died in the camp of appendicitis—even though Carol is told by the the man's mother that he'd had his appendix out years ago. Despite the darkening state of affairs in the country, Eric decides he wants to keep the family in Germany and take over his father's business, a decision which does not sit well with Carol. Things go from bad to worse when Carol makes a joke about Hitler and Eric tells her that is grounds for divorce in Germany.  That's a threat he may follow through on when she finds out that he is having an affair with Nazi apologist Frieda, and that, though he's willing to let Carol go back to the States, he wants to keep Ricky with him.

This feels like a WWII variation on the post-WWI melodrama EVER IN MY HEART which similarly involves problems between a German man and his American wife whose political views begin to differ. Bennett and Lederer are fine, though Bennett seems like a bit of a lightweight—despite the increasing tension, I never really felt like she considered herself in peril, so Lederer (pictured) takes the focus of the movie by default. The film is fast-paced but a little too episodic so it becomes predictable that every 10 minutes or so, a new obstacle will arise or a new secret will be revealed—there's a whopper of a secret saved for the end that I won't spoil here. Lloyd Nolan is good in the limited role of an American reporter, Anna Sten is Freida, and Otto Kruger (as Eric's father) and Maria Ouspenskaya (as Gerhardt's mother) give good support. This was one of the earliest Hollywood films to take a serious and explicit anti-Hitler stance and is well worth watching if this era interests you. [TCM]