Dunne and O'Brien's joyful relationship was fun to watch. Their patter was witty. They hit all the right notes. The others, well, not so much. This was a movie about modern couples trying to find their way through life and love, self-consciously not old-fashioned, finding out what worked for them and what was only good in theory or for others. There were no conclusions drawn that their choices should be the choices for everyone.
Indeed, right and wrong was a complete non-issue. Leave your baby or not--up to you. Change spouses like socks or stick with the one you have--up to you.
Then-current psychology was brought into it, that a baby would grow up happier if the mother left to be happy than if the mother stayed and was resentful. And that the mother would miss the baby more than the other way around.
While it does have a happy ending, that makes sense considering the fact that the other two in the quadrangle were drips and for some people being in a marriage and having a baby DOES change their point of view in regard to past infatuations. And who would want to lose such an upbeat intimate partnership that included mutual love for a child? It was just a matter of recognizing that they had stumbled into a successful relationship in spite of themselves.
I don't know if the two men trying to get them back together toward the end were gay or not but they acted as if they might have been. Gays and lesbians weren't uncommon in movies of that era but a person can read too much into things.
I love pre-Code movies. They illustrate that liberalism doesn't go in a straight progression through time. My parents told me stories about people they knew that showed that even the average Joe and Mary on the street could kick over the traces of "the old morality." If we didn't have these movies, and books, of the era we might believe that most people in the past clung to the conventions like limpets when in fact they were transitioning, too. We are still trying to figure out the answers to the questions raised a hundred or so years ago, such as how important is individual happiness and who makes the rules.
The last lines were fun, too. Grrr. Go get him, Irene!
Indeed, right and wrong was a complete non-issue. Leave your baby or not--up to you. Change spouses like socks or stick with the one you have--up to you.
Then-current psychology was brought into it, that a baby would grow up happier if the mother left to be happy than if the mother stayed and was resentful. And that the mother would miss the baby more than the other way around.
While it does have a happy ending, that makes sense considering the fact that the other two in the quadrangle were drips and for some people being in a marriage and having a baby DOES change their point of view in regard to past infatuations. And who would want to lose such an upbeat intimate partnership that included mutual love for a child? It was just a matter of recognizing that they had stumbled into a successful relationship in spite of themselves.
I don't know if the two men trying to get them back together toward the end were gay or not but they acted as if they might have been. Gays and lesbians weren't uncommon in movies of that era but a person can read too much into things.
I love pre-Code movies. They illustrate that liberalism doesn't go in a straight progression through time. My parents told me stories about people they knew that showed that even the average Joe and Mary on the street could kick over the traces of "the old morality." If we didn't have these movies, and books, of the era we might believe that most people in the past clung to the conventions like limpets when in fact they were transitioning, too. We are still trying to figure out the answers to the questions raised a hundred or so years ago, such as how important is individual happiness and who makes the rules.
The last lines were fun, too. Grrr. Go get him, Irene!