At a cocktail party, Joan (Sylvia Sidney), a young heiress who escapes to the balcony to avoid a masher, meets Jerry (Fredric March), a drunk reporter who really wants to write plays and who is still not quite over his previous relationship. They hit it off and she invites him to a party at her home the next day, but he arrives so late that everyone else has left. Joan’s father isn’t impressed with Jerry, and when he proposes to Joan, Dad offers Jerry $50,000 to leave her alone. The bribe doesn’t work, and at the engagement party, Jerry shows up late and very drunk. Despite the warning signs, the wedding occurs. For a time, Jerry gives up drinking and manages to write a play. It is accepted for production, but the leading lady is Jerry’s ex, Claire. On opening night, Jerry flirts a bit with Claire, gets very drunk, and back home as he passes out, calls Joan Claire. Her father calls Joan a doormat, and indeed Jerry puts the onus on Joan for stopping him from having an affair with Claire. Joan starts doing a fair amount of drinking herself, and surprisingly, at a party, Joan announces that they should have a modern marriage: “Single lives, twin beds, and triple bromides in the morning,” and she leaves with Charlie, a friend of the couple. The rest of the film is predictably melodramatic, with separation, a pregnancy, and a rushed and ambiguous ending that can be read as either hopeful or depressing.
The "modern marriage" aspect of this film seems to have been at least partly inspired by 1930's THE DIVORCEE in which Norma Shearer suggests a similar arrangement, though she goes farther by kicking her husband out of her love life. But this pre-Code romantic melodrama adds the complication of alcoholism, and at one point, it feels like it's anticipating the 1950s DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES about a couple who both fall into drink. That plot strand is dropped when Joan discovers she's pregnant and stops drinking. If you're familiar with domestic melodramas of the 1930s, there will be few surprises in how this plot plays out, though the ending is not exactly straightforwardly "happy." [Spoiler: while separated, Joan has the baby—Jerry hears about it from a newspaper column—but there are complications that leave the baby dead and Joan very ill. Jerry shows up demanding to see her, and in her delirium she has been calling for him. They are reconciled in the hospital room, but we are not necessarily confident that enough has changed for them to work things out.] The lead actors, as directed by Dorothy Arzner, are very good. Sidney does not, in fact, act like a doormat most of the time; despite her petite frame, she is strong and solid. March is especially good at being both charming and (sometimes) repellent, and his drunk scenes are not overdone, possibly thanks to Arzner's direction. The supporting cast is adequate, though no one is given the opportunity to shine. Skeets Gallagher is fine as a peppy pal of Jerry's and Cary Grant, in a very early role, has the small part of Charlie. Given the focus on drinking and extramarital sex, this could not have been made after the Production Code went into effect in 1934. The title comes from a snarky farewell greeting of Jerry's that grows more ominous throughout the movie. Pictured are March and Sidney. [TCM]
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