The Contenders:
Richard Dix: Cimarron
Lionel Barrymore: A Free Soul (winner)
Adolphe Menjou: The Front Page
Fredric March: The Royal Family of Broadway
Jackie Cooper: Skippy
Showing posts with label A Free Soul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Free Soul. Show all posts
Friday, October 25, 2019
Friday, August 2, 2019
Friday, November 23, 2018
Saturday, May 7, 2016
The Queen of MGM
Films: The Divorcee; A Free Soul
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.
I’m always a little nervous when I dip really far back into Oscar history. Silent dramas and early talkies are especially difficult; they tend to pile on the melodrama and present us with characters that couldn’t exist outside of a farce even in a serious drama. There are exceptions, movies that manage to avoid the feeling of actors on a stage playing to the back row. There are other issues as well. No matter what the film or the genre, there apparently has to be a love story wrapped up in the proceedings. There also seems to always need to be a comic character, as if the film wouldn’t be complete without someone playing the fool. With The Divorcee we get kind of a mixed bag on all of these fronts; the film is clearly a product of its time, but it transcends that at times as well.
The Divorcee is a surprise because despite being pretty straightforward in where it’s going and melodramatic in its set-up, it’s actually entertaining. A gang of the idle rich are gathered together and Jerry (Norma Shearer) and Ted (Chester Morris) are off canoodling. They come back to the group and announce their engagement. Everyone seems to be pleased except for Paul (Conrad Nagel), who has carried a torch for Jerry for years. Upset and drunk and the party over, Paul goes speeding away with a few passengers and rolls the car over on a winding road. Everyone is unscathed except for Dorothy (Helen Johnson), who is badly scarred. Jerry and Ted get married. Paul marries Dot out of feelings of responsibility.
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