3 movies about marriage (part 2): Wyler's "Dodsworth" (1936)

Previously on Via Margutta:

"In the past few days I saw three movies, and without knowing it, the three of them were about marriage, only with very different approaches. They were Next time we love (1936; Edward H. Griffith), Dodsworth (1936; William Wyler) and Third finger, left hand (1940; Robert Z. Leonard)..."

So, yesterday I reviewed James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan's first movie together, Next time we love. Now is the turn of Dodsworth, a movie I was looking forward to see because it had great reviews and was directed by William Wyler. I ended up kind of disappointed.

Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston) is a retired tycoon married to a young blonde (Ruth Chatterton). They really don't have anything, anything, anything in common, plus in the very first minutes they flirt with other people like David Niven in a tiny role and Mary Astor in a role wasted because of the editing. So, I ask you, really, would you mind if they split up?

Thanks for bore me.

Obviously, not! You see that Sam and Mary Astor make a really good couple and the blonde will be a superficial woman till the end of her days, but William Wyler and the writers needed to bore you to death before reunite them. Scene after scene you see the shallow blonde in vacations with new partners in every European country and Mr. Dodsworth, who doesn't really love his wife, trying to explain her that he doesn't like the fact that she's cheating on him. Besides, in some scenes you get totally confused because you don't know who are the people that are hanging around with the couple, they looked really alike.

I was watching this with my brother at night and we were like : "We don't care about your boring marriage people, get a divorce quickly please!!" and then we started to record the cat through the window with the video camera, and then we looked for ghosts in a building next to my house that looks like a creepy hospital...and Mr. Dodsworth was still trying to convince the wife he doesn't love to stop seeing other men. So my brother went to the kitchen for a glass of juice and when he came back I had great news: the movie was finally getting interesting!

Yeah, because the last part is nice, romantic, (kind of) intriguing and not boring like the other 3/4 of the film. But it was too late for me anyway, I don't know if I would see this one again in the near future (or the far one).

Well, that was the second entry about movies about marriage I saw by chance. The next one, I promise, is way better!

PS- If you suffer from insomnia, I have good news, Dodsworth is on Youtube:

PPS: Was I too harsh with this one? Please explain me why.