|
Post by galacticgirrrl on Feb 11, 2024 21:15:05 GMT
So little trivia on the imdb for this one - odd.
TCM has a couple of good ones...
During the film's TCM restoration, it was discovered that for its television showings and some international screenings, two and one-half minutes had been taken out of the seduction scene. In the TV print, after promising to slip into "something cooler," Harding later reappears wearing the same dress.
The film turned out to be one of Harding's most attractive showcases, marking one of the few times when this aristocratic, accomplished actress was allowed to look glamorous and take on a saucy character - one formerly recommended for Irene Dunne.
|
|
|
Post by Fading Fast on Feb 11, 2024 21:16:24 GMT
Thanks FF. That was fun. I could have spent at least another hour at that dinner party. I agree, the ending always feels rushed. The movie is all of 69 minutes; was the budget so tight they couldn't have taken five more minutes for a less-rushed finish.
|
|
|
Post by topbilled on Feb 11, 2024 21:17:11 GMT
Thanks Fading Fast for choosing DOUBLE HARNESS.
Such a great film. Always enjoy watching it.
I agree with Bunny's earlier observation that the film is worth seeing again, to savor all the fashionable clothing. And if you're a fan of gardenias, that's another reason to hit replay.
Here's Nat King Cole singing 'Blue Gardenia:'
|
|
|
Post by BunnyWhit on Feb 11, 2024 21:17:23 GMT
I agree! Great film with a fun ending leaving us all laughing! Thanks everyone!
I'm going home with Freeman, nine dresses, the cigarette tray, and the apron with the lovely rick rack! You made an excellent haul in a mere 69 minutes!
|
|
|
Post by Fading Fast on Feb 12, 2024 10:51:24 GMT
Double Harness from 1933 with Ann Harding, William Powell and Reginald Owen
Double Harness fully leverages the freedom of being a pre-code movie to intelligently and thoughtfully examine how a single woman plots a marriage of convenience only to have everything turned upside down on her once she accomplishes her goal.
In this short, wonderful movie, the quietly beautiful and talented Ann Harding plays the nice and kind older sister of a once-wealthy family now struggling in the Depression.
She starts dating the well-to-do playboy scion of a shipping empire, played by William Powell. Knowing he doesn't want to get married, but needing money for her family and herself, she contrives a way to trap him.
Harding starts sleeping with him (yup) and, then, as secretly arranged by Harding, has her father "discover" them together, which forces gentleman Powell to offer to marry Harding, who accepts.
Powell and Harding, as (one assumes) was the norm at the time, then plan to have an amicable divorce after a "respectable interval," because he only married her as an obligation. This norm also meant Harding would get a reasonable "settlement."
Harding, a decent woman forced by circumstances to do something out of character, then tries to make her marriage work by being a good, smart and supportive wife. Driven by guilt and integrity, she even tells Powell she won't accept any alimony when they divorce.
Harding's plan to turn her contrived marriage into a real one might have worked, too, if Harding's spoiled spendthrift younger sister, played by Lucile Browne, hadn't pestered her and Powell for money.
The sister, in a mean and bratty move because she's angry her sister, Harding, has married a wealthy man and Harding won't let him give her, Browne, money, exposes to the unaware-until-now Powell that he was tricked by Harding into the marriage.
With everything blowing up in Harding's face, the movie races to a climax. We want to see their marriage survive - Powell and Harding are now truly in love - but respect that Powell is rightfully angry at being duped.
There are a few related side stories including Harding's bratty sister having a failing marriage because she is outspending her husband's reasonable income. Of the two sisters, Harding is the keeper.
Also, Powell's loyal manservant, played by the always enjoyable Reginald Owen, becomes a Harding advocate and, at Harding's direction, Powell begins to take an active and healthy interest in his family's shipping business.
It's a smartly constructed story that has your sympathies lying where they ostensibly shouldn't be, with Harding, a woman who tricked a nice man into marrying her under false pretenses.
Harding believably conveys the feeling that she hates what she did and is sincerely trying to make amends. It's a wonderful real-life type of nuance that respects its audience.
Harding and Powell also have such incredible chemistry - Powell had that with so many of his co stars one has to assume he was easy to work with - that you can't help rooting for them to stay together. Kudos to the writers and director John Cromwell for making a movie long on intelligence and realistic dialogue and situations that challenges easy moral answers by weaving in the messy grayness of real life. And all that happens in just over an hour of runtime.
From a play, Double Harness is light on action, but it doesn't need it as its story is engaging and Powell and Harding are so appealing that you are frustrated by the rushed ending.
Double Harness is everything a pre-code movie should be: a well-acted, thoughtful, honest-about-sex, morally complex and smartly written picture that entertains in a way that respects its audience's intelligence.
It's a shame that, with the coming of the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code, in only a year, fewer movies would be made that had adult characters actually acting like adults as they do in Double Harness.
|
|
|
Post by topbilled on Feb 12, 2024 13:53:54 GMT
Good review Fading Fast. I will have to disagree slightly about the ending. I didn't find it to be rushed. I thought it had to build in one of two directions...either she had to tell the postmaster general her marriage was a sham and eat crow. Or else Powell had to show up and make everything right, which is what did happen to facilitate a happy ending. Once Powell showed up, and we knew the marriage was still valid and intact, any more scenes would have taken away from the emotional high of that moment and would have felt anti-climactic.
One thing I especially like about where the story ended was that there were no easy resolutions for the sister's subplot. Her husband had taken her home because she was drunk, but at the party, she was still angling for money from another man willing to give it to her with strings attached. If this was made during the enforcement of the production code, the sister would have had to realize she was wrong to try living beyond her means, stop drinking and beg her husband for forgiveness. So, although Harding's union with Powell remains intact and they will undoubtedly have a happy marriage, we are left with the idea the sister Val will continue to self-destruct and her marriage probably won't last.
I agree that the dialogue in this film is realistic, and both stars give nuanced performances. I did wonder if Powell recognized some traits in the character he was playing as similar to some of his own, from the time before he married Lombard...as a sought after guy who had countless romantic entanglements and didn't feel the need to settle down or commit until the right woman came along. His performance felt very knowing, as if it was coming from a place of experience.
|
|