Tonight's movie was "In Name Only" (1939), a melodrama about a loveless marriage starring Cary Grant, Carole Lombard and Kay Francis. How's that for a high-powered cast? The story needed all that talent because man, is it ever a potboiler. Grant, in his mid-30s here, is the privileged son of a wealthy Connecticut businessman. One day he is out riding his horse in the countryside and he happens upon Carole Lombard, who is fishing by herself at the side of a creek. She is having trouble with her line so naturally Grant stops to help her. A Classic Hollywood Mode Of Introduction.
They chat awhile. She offers him half of her picnic lunch and he helps himself to more than that, with a bit of Lombard/Grant lighthearted repartee to get things going. It turns out that she is a widow with a young daughter. She works as a graphic artist for the New York fashion world and is renting a house nearby (here in Connecticut) for the summer.
Grant asks if she will meet him at the river again the next day and she says yes. A relationship is quickly developing. After their second picnic by the river, Grant escorts her home, to a countryside house he is familiar with because his family used to own it. Now there is even more of a connection between the two of them, and before you know it, Grant says the Three Magic Words to Lombard and we have a romance.
Another woman soon enters the picture, however, a real hussy (played by the excellent Helen Vinson). We are introduced to her at a restaurant where Cary Grant is having dinner, alone. Vinson - a vixen - recognises Grant and sits down next to him. She immediately begins flirting with him and behaving very suggestively. In rapid succession we discover three things : 1) that Grant knows her, 2) That he has no interest in her advances, and 3) that Vinson is the best friend of Grant's wife.
Grant's wife?! Yes indeed, my shocked friends. He is a married man, betrothed to the always regal and supremely stylish Kay Francis (one of my favorite early Hollywood actresses). The almost always sympathetic and usually charming Francis is neither in this movie. Here, she is a calculating and ultimately ruthless woman who married Grant for his money. He knows this, has known it all along, and this is why he has struck up the friendship with Carole Lombard in the first place, which has now grown into more than that.
But back to the dinner at the restaurant involving Grant and Helen Vinson, his wife's salacious best friend. Grant, being the good guy he is, shuts down her advances but still offers her a ride home. On the way, however, as they are driving down a dark country road, she continues her sexual antagonism, first by touching Grant and then by changing the radio station from his boxing match. She is trying to get his attention by getting his goat. Her behavior escalates quickly to the point where he is distracted from his driving. The next thing you know, they are veering off the road and having a bad accident.
And wouldn't you know it, the place where they have crashed is only yards from the rented home of Carole Lombard, who hears the noise and rushes out to the woods to discover a badly hurt Cary Grant and the relatively unscathed Helen Vinson. She, having a mouth like running dirty water, does first ask Lombard to phone for an ambulance, but then adds a request that she not mention Vinson's presence at the accident scene. "You see, I am his wife's best friend, and I wouldn't want her or his family to get the wrong idea".
So now, all of a sudden, nice lady Carole Lombard has been confronted with three things : 1) Her new boyfriend Cary Grant has been in a car wreck, 2) He is with a woman who seems to be a floozy, and 3) He is married!
What in the wide world of sports is a'goin on here?
To make matters worse, we have another character - Lombard's sister, who lives with her - who has been through a divorce as a result of a cheating husband. Her sister is hard bitten as a result, doesn't trust men period, and wants now to protect Carole from Cary, who from her perspective is an infidel.
This is a very convoluted plot and you have to pay close attention, but thanks to the genius of Golden Era screenwriters you are never confused. The insinuations of best friend Helen Vinson are merely a distraction. The real villain is Kay Francis, who finds out about Lombard and her husband, and refuses to give him a divorce under any circumstances. Actually, the divorce is more complicated than that but I haven't the time to explain it. What Francis is really after is the father's money. He is the patriarch of the family business empire that her husband Cary Grant works for. And she is a schemer nonpareil.
The sweet Lombard, who has the soul of an artist, is no match for her. Lombard cares not for money, she only loves Cary Grant. But she is in for a reckoning if she thinks she can have him against the will of Francis, and so is Grant.
The battle between love and materialism here is one of attrition. Kay Francis may think she wields the upper hand, but there will come a final stand off, after a despondent Cary Grant has nearly drinks himself to death on Christmas Eve, where the cold hearted Francis will be exposed for who she really is.
I know I have given you a lot of spoilers, but I had to because this is such a great story with so many threads interwoven. Even so, there is way more in the movie that I haven't revealed, and because I add my Highest Recommendation toward it, I hope you will seek it out if you are as big a fan of early Hollywood as I am. I found "In Name Only" in yet another library search for "Warner Archive" dvds.
Well anyway, see it. And become a fan of Kay Francis while you're at it. She was really great. ////
I also watched two more episodes of "Project Blue Book", which I think is the best show about UFOs that I have seen since "The X-Files". It is a must see, and I have two eps left for tomorrow night.
Finally, I had a very nice hike this afternoon up at O'Melveny.
I hope you had a nice day as well. See you in the morning, love through the night. xoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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