This film is based on a best-selling 1946 novel by John P. Marquand, which satirized a number of aspects of American society between 1932 and 1946, among them liberal and conservative views, the discrepancy between the wealthy and the ordinary folk, and lesser items like radio commentators who didn't know much but didn't let that stop them from sounding off, overbearing Pentagon brass, marriages made on the rebound and so on. However, you'll find precious little of the satire in this film version. MGM turned Marquand's novel into a "women's picture" that enforces what were considered in the late 40s to be the proper roles a man and woman should perform.
The plot deals with Polly Fulton, the adventurous daughter of a wealthy industrialist, who decides she doesn't want to marry the stuffed shirt she's engaged to, though he's a decent enough chap. Instead, she will marry a man with ideas, someone a bit off the beaten paths she knows: an assistant professor of economics at Columbia University. (Live dangerously. Ha!) In this limited space, I can't detail much plot beyond indicating that the financial discrepancy between the wife and the husband lead to problems that bring them to the brink of divorce. One point the film is enforcing is that women should not emasculate their husbands by providing financial aid to them. "Hubby" should be the bread winner, even if the wife is wealthy.
Before Polly's father dies, he asks her if she's happy in her marriage. She admits that she is not. Now B.F. tells her, "Marriage is an investment. It's like a business. Fight for your marriage." Polly's best friend tells her, "Lots of marriages aren't the way they say they are in books. But they are worth fighting for." So much for this film's philosophy. At the film's conclusion, when Polly's husband is about to leave her, she runs after him, shouting, "Oh, Tom. Don't go! I need you!" With that Tom enfolds her in his arms and says, "Oh, Polly, that's all I've been waiting to hear" and kisses her. Marriage saved. Does this sound like something you want to see today?
In the novel, Tom had had an affair, and the marriage was not saved. But this film version is so gutless that it doesn't even allow Tom the affair. Instead, the woman Tom is rumored to be keeping turns out to be an escapee from a concentration camp for whom Tom is acting as a Good Samaritan.
In addition, Tom takes back a good many things he'd said earlier in the film, telling Polly he was wrong about her wealthy father, wrong about Robert Tasmin, the Ivy-League educated lawyer Polly was about to marry, calling him "a real gentleman, after all." The movie simply affirms upper-middle-class values and, in fact, makes it clear that it's better to be wealthy, even if that might have some negative effects on a marriage at first. I mean, only animal-rights activists are going to forsake those full-length mink coats that Stanwyck sports here, and some of them might even prove weak when put to the test.
The film has fine production values, though there is absolutely no sense of period detail. Everything is happening in 1948 fashions, and although the film covers fifteen years, no one ages a whit.
Stanwyck and Van Heflin are clearly too old to play the young Polly and Tom, but, once the two are married, they immediately become 40-somethings for the rest of the film. Stanwyck, Van Heflin, and the rest of the cast all do competent acting jobs. It's just that the script is so weak. Utter piffle!
The plot deals with Polly Fulton, the adventurous daughter of a wealthy industrialist, who decides she doesn't want to marry the stuffed shirt she's engaged to, though he's a decent enough chap. Instead, she will marry a man with ideas, someone a bit off the beaten paths she knows: an assistant professor of economics at Columbia University. (Live dangerously. Ha!) In this limited space, I can't detail much plot beyond indicating that the financial discrepancy between the wife and the husband lead to problems that bring them to the brink of divorce. One point the film is enforcing is that women should not emasculate their husbands by providing financial aid to them. "Hubby" should be the bread winner, even if the wife is wealthy.
Before Polly's father dies, he asks her if she's happy in her marriage. She admits that she is not. Now B.F. tells her, "Marriage is an investment. It's like a business. Fight for your marriage." Polly's best friend tells her, "Lots of marriages aren't the way they say they are in books. But they are worth fighting for." So much for this film's philosophy. At the film's conclusion, when Polly's husband is about to leave her, she runs after him, shouting, "Oh, Tom. Don't go! I need you!" With that Tom enfolds her in his arms and says, "Oh, Polly, that's all I've been waiting to hear" and kisses her. Marriage saved. Does this sound like something you want to see today?
In the novel, Tom had had an affair, and the marriage was not saved. But this film version is so gutless that it doesn't even allow Tom the affair. Instead, the woman Tom is rumored to be keeping turns out to be an escapee from a concentration camp for whom Tom is acting as a Good Samaritan.
In addition, Tom takes back a good many things he'd said earlier in the film, telling Polly he was wrong about her wealthy father, wrong about Robert Tasmin, the Ivy-League educated lawyer Polly was about to marry, calling him "a real gentleman, after all." The movie simply affirms upper-middle-class values and, in fact, makes it clear that it's better to be wealthy, even if that might have some negative effects on a marriage at first. I mean, only animal-rights activists are going to forsake those full-length mink coats that Stanwyck sports here, and some of them might even prove weak when put to the test.
The film has fine production values, though there is absolutely no sense of period detail. Everything is happening in 1948 fashions, and although the film covers fifteen years, no one ages a whit.
Stanwyck and Van Heflin are clearly too old to play the young Polly and Tom, but, once the two are married, they immediately become 40-somethings for the rest of the film. Stanwyck, Van Heflin, and the rest of the cast all do competent acting jobs. It's just that the script is so weak. Utter piffle!