Note: This 1929 movie asks the question whether married couples can have a relationship with other people outside the marriage but remain committed to the marriage. Apparently in our culture every generation for the last century has to hash this issue out, given we still see on Reddit stories like “I proposed an open marriage, but I regret it.” Maybe antique movies with enduring themes will still have relevance for us post-moderns: literature is news that stays news, said Ezra Pound.
Paris
Bound
1929 / 1:16
Tagline: “Is Love Crushed by Marriage?”
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This is the film version of the 1927 play by Philip Barry. He was known for exploring the intersectionality of love, marriage, and sex among the young, healthy, and wealthy. This seems to be one of Barry’s lesser-known plays and Hollywood never re-made this film version like they re-made Holiday, The Animal Kingdom, and The Philadelphia Story.
The wedding ceremony of Mary (Ann Harding) and James (Fredric March) seems to be an event that no one wants to attend. The guests look dubious, as if they were wishing they were someplace else. James’ former GF Noel is so obviously repining that the other guests tell Jim to give her a talking to, to snap her out of her decline. Jim is always restrained with her but Noel tells Jim that she is his heart and soul. Theatrical Noel also tells Mary that Mary has the wisest eyes Noel has ever seen.
As I said, the guests look stricken, like they were digesting a frightening diagnosis. This is strange because in the opening scene, her first scene ever in a motion picture, in a wedding dress, Ann Harding looks stunning. Breath-taking. The headpiece and veil make her look like she has descended from the Empyrean to show us funny-looking mortals something … wonderful. After almost one hundred years, in a brutalized monochrome print Ann Harding’s oval face radiates timeless elegance, with luminous eyes, refined features, and a serene expression. Her classic beauty blends intelligence, warmth, grace, and quiet strength, leaving a memorable impression today. The only other entrance that made me gape and gabble like this was that shot of Grace Kelly alighting from a cloud before broken-legged Stewart in her first scene in Rear Window.
Anyway, enough babbling. Jim and Mary promise never to quit each other though they grant “sex attraction” for third parties will happen. This kind of open-mindedness is often expressed by Barry’s characters until the fat is in the fire and characters conclude keeping more traditional attitudes leads to less mess in personal relations. Barry’s claims, I think, are that monogamy means fewer hurt feelings and thus in the long run exclusivity is more conducive to peace of mind.
To continue, they have a child and Mary plays her piano looking soulful and thoughtful (and few actresses do sad and pensive better than Ann Harding). Every now and then Jim has to take the big boat to Europe for six weeks at a time. He works for a publisher who has a stable of expatriate American writers so he needs to visit the Riviera to confer with them.
Mary is decidedly not a soldier about these lengthy separations but stays home for the sake of their toddler son. Thunderheads appear when Mary gets inadvertent word from Jim’s sister that circumstantial evidence suggests Jim and Noel met on the Rivera for discreet adult play. Mary wretchedly works with composer Richard Parrish on their ballet. Without conviction, she lamely argues that married people need vacations from each other once in a while. Richard however falls in love with Mary and declares his love for Mary. Poor Mary - when it rains, it pours.
This is an early talkie, so the sound in the IA print sounds muddy in places, has drop-outs and random noise, and an annoying echo of various words and phrases. Also the staging is static, not cinematic at all. The acting is sometimes histrionic – emphatic, earnest, with diction to ensure that theatre-goers in the back rows will catch every word. I think Fredric March and Ann Harding, both stage-trained, are natural in this early all-talking movie - they both know how to deliver a line.
