LOVERS COURAGEOUS (1932)

As a boy, Willie Smith is always in trouble with his parents and his teachers, and as he grows up, he continues to chafe against society, wanting to be someone different or special. He holds a string of jobs, winding up in a tobacco shop in South Africa where he meets Mary Blayne, a British admiral's daughter who is set to marry an older, rather stuffy nobleman named Jimmy. Willie has become an aspiring playwright and soon Mary is reading a draft of his play as the two begin spending intimate time together. A friend of her family, an officer named Jeffrey, intuits what's going on and warns Mary's parents. Their solution is to have her mother spirit her away to England on the pretext of visiting a sick relative, where she will, they hope, be happy to settle down with Jimmy. Jeffrey, despite being responsible for their parting, soon feels sorry for Mary and even goes so far to suggest that, after a couple years of marriage, she could pursue an extramarital affair. But before the wedding can happen, Willie moves to London, living a pauper's existence as he works on his play. Soon, Mary finds him and, despite Mary being cut off from any money by her father, they marry. The "courageous" part of the title, I guess, comes as they try to make it together in the cold hard world of London.

This is a fairly average romantic melodrama, perhaps pulled off with a lighter touch than most, but it's also very predictable, especially in its last third as she pawns her belongings and he steals food to stay alive. Eventually, Willie goes to the Admiral and asks him to take her back, by herself; Mary lies in bed and begins to waste away until, voila, Willie's play is accepted for production and a happy ending is finally in store. I run hot and cold on Robert Montgomery (Willie), but I do tend to like his earlier movies, and he's in pretty charming form here. Madge Evans (pictured with Montgomery), star of the 30s who married a playwright and left the business, is fine as Mary. Roland Young is excellent in one of his typical sympathetic uncle roles (the epitome of which is Uncle Willie in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY) and Reginald Owen is Jimmy, who is a little likable even though we're not supposed to like him--the character is drab, not evil. At times, especially when the two lovers say farewell before Mary leaves for England, the dialogue sounds quite stagy, perhaps because the screenplay is by playwright Frederick Lonsdale. [TCM]