A real curiosity this. Stage director Joshua Logan had yet to his make mark on B’way when he was called to Hollywood as dialogue director for David Selznick (GARDEN OF ALLAH/’36) and Walter Wanger (HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT/’37). Hating the experience, he was unexpectedly called back to co-direct (with Arthur Ripley*) Wanger’s wife, Joan Bennett, in this F. Scott Fitzgerald wannabe story of youthful futility, mistimed gestures of love, drift, boozing & a fatal ‘mock’ duel in Paris; and finally love renewed. Joan Bennett is the blonde girl in the prologue who runs off on a romantic whim then returns to science professor Henry Fonda as a brunette, now a chastened young widow with bratty child. Can they make a go of it after ten missing years, especially with that clingy student making a big play for the professor. It all comes down to a snowy, suicide ride of a climax almost as fatalistic & nutty as Wanger’s previous film, HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT. That film had director Frank Borzage bringing his signature romantic fatalism; this one has Logan & Ripley. A vacuum producer Wanger noted, calling in George Cukor (way too late) as a third director. Still, fun watching Bennett ignore continuity from one scene to another as she tests various shades of brown hair. (She’d go dark brunette from here on.) And for some reason there’s an absolute whopper glam shot (it might be a George Hurrell portrait) of college student Tim Holt standing up to challenge Fonda in his science class. Why Mohr went to such trouble is a mystery.* But then, not much makes sense in this one.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Logan returned to Hollywood after twenty years, now a big shot B’way success. He never did get the hang of moviemaking. While Ripley, like Logan with only a handful of features made something of a cult item in THE CHASE/’46 (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-chase-1946.html), from a Cornell Woolrich story. Oddly, with Tim Holt’s dad, Jack Holt in a major supporting role. OR: As mentioned, HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/02/hisory-is-made-at-night-1937.html
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Did Orson Welles remember this shot when he cast Holt in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS?
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