User Reviews

This film is an old favorite and a crowd pleaser. I saw it recently and the amazing this is that even though 65 years have passed since its release, it still holds one's attention. Thanks to the direction of John Cromwell, this is a timeless classic.

The production of this film must have presented problems to the team involved in it. Films of the era stayed away from taboo themes because of the censorship, but this movie is an exception: an unhappily married man finds happiness with a widowed working mother. It is clear that there's nothing between Alec and Maida, a power couple living a life of luxury in the country.

Enter lovely Julie Eden. She is beautiful, talented, but with no desire to be a part of the country gentry around her. She's a free spirit who falls under the spell of a handsome Alec; who wouldn't? At the same time, Julie realizes this relationship has no future. She leaves the situation going back to Manhattan, trying to forget Alec.

The combination of Carole Lombard, playing Julie, against the Alec of Cary Grant, pays a great dividend. These two actors were meant to play opposite each other; they both bring enough charisma to fill a few other movies. Added to this mixture is the great Kay Francis, as Maida, the society wife who will not let go of her ticket to the life of luxury she is accustomed to.

The rest of the cast is excellent. Additional credit must go to Irene, the costume designer who had an eye for the clothes all the society types wore at the time.

A truly good time at the movies.

Have been seeing quite a few films with Carole Lombard - what a talented actress, she is. Prompted by Hitchcock's only (screwball) comedy "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" (1941) where Lombard was paired with Robert Montgomery - it's a lively repartee incessant - I jumped at the chance of seeing another film of hers. Thanks to cable Turner Classic Movies (TCM) programming, I was able to catch "In Name Only" (1939) where she played opposite Cary Grant and Kay Francis. Grant hardly get to be humorous or cheerful for that matter due to the character he's portraying. In fact, he had to play a man deprived of marital love, striving for a true love that kept being stumped by a vixen of a loveless wife, and he sure is convincing as a wearied man - seldom see him in such a sad-faced role.

This is a tearjerker, alright. But you can't help wanting to hang in there with the loving pair of Julie and Alec (Lombard and Grant), while Francis's Maida unrelentingly scheming to 'destroy' their hope of being together. Soap, quite so. I can't turn away but glued to the screen watching the pair's delightful encounters, wishing and hoping with them, worried with the two and Julie's daughter welfare, Julie's sister to understand and support her, just hoping Maida would 'disappear'. Alec is such a nice guy, so kind and trusting - how we wish he can see through Maida's deviousness! Julie is so patient - how long can one wait? So easy to fall into the pressures of society - what other people may think or say of you. Such entanglements. Why can't Alec's parents see through the guiles of Maida? Kay Francis' portrayal of callous Maida is insidious personified. How will this all end? Will Julie and Alec ever get to be together, ever?

Catch this brilliant soap drama directed by John Cromwell ("Made for Each Other" 1939, Lombard with James Stewart), scripted by Richard Sherman based on Bessie Breuer's novel. Music by Roy Webb complemented the mood. I fell in love with the performances of Lombard and Grant in "In Name Only." 95 minutes in B/W is quite a love story challenged, indeed.

Charles Coburn has a bit part as Grant's father in this film. To enjoy more of him, check out his performances along with the vivaciously demure Jean Arthur in director Sam Wood's "The Devil & Miss Jones" 1941, and director George Stevens' "The More the Merrier" 1943 (with Joel McCrea, too.)

After watching this you will have seen why Kay Francis was such a good actress. I know this one is billed with Cary Grant and Carole Lombard but this one was Kay Francis' show.

Man does she put on a performance. She's not in it very much but she doesn't need to be. You'll get an idea what a gold digger really is and what they can do with her performance. She's just flat out evil.

In this film you'll see what a good supporting cast should look like. I wish they still made these melodramas like this. I'm grateful though that there are plenty to choose from on DVD from this time period.

I know this line is old and tired and said all the time but..."they just don't make em like this anymore."

This is the perfect movie to curl up to on a winter day and get lost in a soap opera. The performances are very good and Lombard is just gorgeous. I think the best reason to see it is to see Kay Francis in a comeback performance. She had been relegated to the undesirable list by the studios at this point in her career. Her portrayal of Maida, Cary Grant's uncompromising wife, is great fun to watch. The movie is a little cornball in parts but overall it works. Lombard fans really won't be disappointed.

The presence of Grant and Lombard drew me to this one on American Movie Classics, though I thought the script might a bit of a handkerchief-wringer. To my surprise the story was thoroughly absorbing and involving, as well as being a great study of the manners and mores of the era. And of course, Cary Grant and Carole Lombard carry the whole thing through with their wonderful performances. Well worth a see.

In Name Only stars Cary Grant, Carole Lombard & Kay Francis. It's directed by John Cromwell and adapted by Richard Sherman from the novel "Memory of Love" written by Bessie Breuer. Plot finds Grant as Alec Walker who is stuck in a loveless marriage to Maida (Francis). She only married him for money and social standing. One day Alec meets Julie Eden (Lombard) fishing on the lake and they fall in love, but Maida refuses to grant Alec a divorce and the lovers seem fated to never be together.

View as a romantic melodrama with the odd light touch and you shouldn't be disappointed in this very professional production. The film was originally planned as the fourth pairing between Grant & Katharine Hepburn. But Hepburn had severed her ties with RKO after the fall out from "Bringing Up Baby" (a flop on release that helped create the ridiculous notion of her being box office poison). In came Lombard who wasn't actually that keen to do the picture. Massively popular at the time, she had just married Clark Cable and was looking to spend more time at home. However, money and contracts talk, and Lombard got a tremendous deal that included profit percentages and top billing. This annoyed Grant who then threatened to quit the picture, but after some renegotiation's and haggling the film thankfully got made with Grant & Lombard in place.

Director John Cromwell was coming off his hit movie "Made for Each Other" with Lombard & James Stewart in the lead roles. In Name Only is not a million miles away from that picture in tone and story telling. It's a fine movie, a three-star romantic triangle piece that thematically is a time capsule from a time when attitudes to fidelity and divorce were vastly different than today. But thanks to the emotional depth from Lombard and a delicious bitch turn from Francis, the film is able to hold its own in any decade. Of course having Grant handsomely nestling between these two polar opposite pillars of sexuality is also a selling point. Audience reaction was mixed, understandably so. Lombard & Grant between them had done some fast and popular comedy movies in the 30s, so for many the tone of this film was unexpected. However, the film was a commercial hit for RKO and it stands up as a good reference point to the merits of Lombard & Francis' dramatic worth. Grant would appease the screwball lovers the following year with the quite brilliant "His Girl Friday" for Howard Hawks.

A film to warm the cockles of your heart on a blustery winters day, In Name Only is recommended to romantic drama fans. 7/10

In Bridgefield, Connecticut, wealthy Alec Walker (Cary Grant) falls for widow single mom Julie Eden (Carole Lombard). He is in a loveless marriage to Maida (Kay Francis). He discovers her previous infidelity. He offers her a lucrative divorce but she refuses to surround the prestigue of his wealth. With disceets to his parents, she tries to destroy his relationship with Julie.

This relies on making Maida a horrible villain and Alec's intentions pure. It feels too easy. There is some darkness here but the movie intends to keep the romanticism. The characters are presented as broad constructs. The plot is melodramatic worthy of any summer-reading romance novels. It also ends in an odd way. I don't see why Maida would go along with the lie and it leaves the audience hanging in the air. I understand the attempt at a poignant ending but I can see better ways to do it. As a romance with some bite, this does deliver on the main.

Boy meets girl. Boy is married. Girl is widowed with a child. They fall in love, but his wife won't let him have his freedom. She will do anything to hold onto him. That is In Name Only in a nutshell...and what a masterpiece it is. With so many major films released in 1939, it is understandable how a film about 3 people in a grueling triangle can be overlooked. It seems that today, thanks to TCM, so many wonderful moments of screen history may once again be viewed and shared. I can remember as a child seeing this moving film on television. It was wonderful then, and even better now. The years have not left a mark on it. The evil portrayed by Kay Francis, subtle at times, flagrant at others keeps the viewer from feeling this is a sappy soap opera. As good as both Carole Lombard and Cary Grant are in this film, Kay outshines them. It's about time the world once again discovers the merits of Kay Francis. In this movie, she not only steals each scene she is in, but proves herself to have been thoroughly underrated as an actress. She was so much more than just a great beauty or a clotheshorse for the most stunning wardrobes in Hollywood. Try to catch each and every film she made and visit http://www.kayfrancisfilms.com/

Take an interesting story about two more or less doomed lovers, add a much-deserved happy-ending and cast all three leads against type. Than hand it over to a competent director, spend some money for plush production values, demand some snappy lines, hire a top-notch supporting cast and take care of a lush camera work. What do you get? One of the great love stories of all time.

The main reason is the cast!

Carole Lombard, beautiful and radiant, is much more subdued than usual.

Cary Grant, still on his way up to the echelon of stardom. 'Suave' aptly describes his performance.

And, best of all, Kay Francis. After being cast in a slew of low-budget programmers (WB even billed her below the title in 'Women in the Wind') her old pal Lombard (always the generous one) helped her out of oblivion with this once-in-a-lifetime role. Francis is cast a domestic monster but she underplays admirably and her scenes with Lombard sparkle.

The pic holds up very, very well. But be warned: tissued will be needed by the boxful at each viewing.

The mega-stars of the old studio era are usually remembered for the iconic films they starred in: Humphrey Bogart and 'Casablanca,' Katharine Hepburn and 'The Philadelphia Story,' Jimmy Stewart and 'It's a Wonderful Life.' When you come across a title in a star's resume that you've never heard of, it usually means that it's a lesser, forgettable film. And this is the case for "In Name Only" for both Cary Grant and Carole Lombard.

This is a minor, sudsy weeper that only moves from plot point to plot point because the characters don't do or say the things they should in order to extract themselves from their predicaments. By the time the film comes to an end with the doctor explaining the importance of having a positive psychological outlook in order to combat pneumonia, I had lost interest and was actively wishing the movie would end.

With all the rubbishy movies available today on DVD, why on earth is a masterpiece like this not available on that medium ? This is one of my all time favourites ( like Random Harvest, Waterloo Bridge, Last holiday etc ). I loved CG in Penny Serenade, but he is even better here. From beginning to end, your're clutching at your heart ! What a shame picture and sound quality are so bad. Can't this be re-mastered and numerized for God's sake. Performances by all involved are magnificent and you can't guess the outcome right up till the end. And of course I loved Charles Coburn (almost as good as in "Heaven can Wait" ). They just can't make films like this any more today even though the actual theme of the film is timeless. This is a must-see for all incurable romantics like myself !!!

75/100. When in the cast you have Cary Grant, Carole Lombard and Kay Francis, you know you are in for a treat, and indeed, In Name Only is just that. Surprisingly, Kay Francis outshines the top billed performers. She gives a very fine performance. Helen Vinson is memorable as one of Francis' catty friends. Good art direction, the costumes are quite well done. This is one of Peggy Ann Garner's earliest roles as Lombard's daughter. She is such a natural actress. Well written and a bit of a tearjerker, but it showcases Lombard's versatility in her ability to play dramatic roles as well as the comic roles she is best known for. John Cromwell's careful direction pulls it all together.

A melodrama is only as good as its villain. This one's villain is good enough to redeem the melodrama. Drama otherwise has a hard time here. stretching its material patently thin. Alec (Cary Grant) is rich. He's unhappily married. He'd like to divorce his wife, Maida (our villainess, Kay Francis), to marry pretty Julie (Carole Lombard). Wife won't grant him a divorce. Prospects look bleak until Alec, following a drunken binge, fortuitously contracts pneumonia. (It's implied that the drinking somehow facilitated the disease, but I imagine medical science would debate that.) He cannot be cured, says the doctor sententiously, because, being unhappy, he has lost the will to live (we'll leave that diagnosis again to medical science). Someone must make him happy. Cue Carole Lombard. That's about it. What's next we never know. Alec will live, maybe. Will he get his divorce? Maybe, after Maida, as her father-in-law suggests, takes his finances to the cleaners. Or maybe not, if she continues to refuse him out of understandable pique. Tune in next week.

Only the acting could rescue a story like that. Carole Lombard gives it her best. And she is very good. But she really needs a chance to let loose, to show some ebullience. She doesn't get it playing a hapless, unsteady heroine, which her character is for most of the film. Cary Grant - I know I will be in the minority opinion - has never impressed me in dramatic roles. He was unsurpassed in comedy, touch, timing, impeccable: "His Girl Friday," "Bringing Up Baby" of course, "Arsenic and Old Lace" (though I have read he was dissatisfied with that one). In "Gunga Din," an adventure story, he plays it half way for laughs, and he's excellent. He injects lightness. He livens up the most precarious situations. When he's just serious he annoys me, even if the film is otherwise outstanding: "Suspicion," "Notorious," even "North by Northwest." He seems somehow glum, artificial. Maybe it was exactly that, artificiality. He suppresses his natural, God-given flair. The mask of tragedy doesn't quite fit. As a man dying of grief (exacerbated by pneumonia) he doesn't tug at my heartstrings. All this brings us to Kay Francis. Playing against type, she scorches the screen with malevolence. Her eyes alone convey such loathing and contempt, the wrath of a woman scorned, as one seldom sees on film. She steals every scene she is in. The intensity compares to Bette Davis' Regina in "The Little Foxes," or Mercedes McCambridge's obsessed cowgirl Emma in "Johnny Guitar." There is no higher accolade. Her performance, namely, makes "In Name Only" worth watching.

Alec Walker (Cary Grant) is horseback riding when he comes across a young woman, Julie Eden (Carole Lombard), fishing on the bank of a stream. They talk, eventually spending the afternoon together. They make arrangements to meet again the next day, and the relationship takes off. But there is another woman--Maida Walker (Kay Francis), the wife of Alec. In name only. They have a loveless marriage. The only thing that holds them together is Maida's refusal to give Alec a divorce.

Eventually, Julie discovers Alec is married and he has to convince her that their relationship is more valid that his empty marriage. Maida plays the villain; she does not care for Alec but she hangs on in hopes of eventual financial reward.

The story condemns marital laws and society, which value the "sanctity of marriage" above all else. Things have changed since the thirties, but this story of love thwarted by conventions still engages the emotions of the viewer.

All of the lead actors plays their roles well. Helen Vinson plays the part of Suzanne, Maida's "best friend", who has her own reasons for tormenting the couple.

A top-notch tearjerker, IN NAME ONLY is a surprising frank and realistic study of the dissolution of marriage and relationships. Carole Lombard and Cary Grant, both of whom were best known to audiences of the day for light romantic comedies, are fantastic in roles that are far removed from their typical fare. Grant continues to successfully stretch the contours of his on-screen persona (a process that begin with 1939's ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS), and Lombard has seldom been as beautifully self-effacing as she is in this film. The commanding Kay Francis literally owns the role of Grant's bitchy wife, and her perfectly calculated performances manages to radiate with the appropriate menace without falling into one-dimensional parody (which is not an easy feat).

The film feels unique in both structure and tone when compared to other movies from the same era. The first-third of the picture almost feels like the set up for a screwball comedy, but film then takes several unexpected turns before launching into a dark and haunting third act. This structure is highly unusual for a studio film of this era, as is the somewhat gloomy approach to the material, but it all works thanks to director John Cromwell and his amazing cast. The film was not highly regarded among critics nor most audiences when originally released, but the reputation of IN NAME ONLY has gained additional luster over the decades and is now considered to be somewhat of lost gem by many film fans.

Fans of Grant and Lombard might consider this a missed opportunity of pairing two of the best comic actors of the era in some outlandish screwball comedy, but I doubt they would be upset for too long as they combine more than satisfactorily in straight roles in this emotional melodrama directed by John Cromwell.

Lombard is the recently widowed magazine illustrator with an infant daughter who Grant bumps into at the holiday home she's renting for the season but which he used to own. He's the minted son of rich parents but as we soon learn is trapped in a loveless marriage with society hostess Kay Francis. The two fall hard for each other before he eventually tells her his situation. Now he has the excuse he's wanted to finally attempt to divorce the scheming Francis who we learn only married rich kid Cary for his money and status, heartlessly ditching her true love who we discover committed suicide immediately afterwards.

Francis is clever, as without any kids in the marriage, she cosies up warmly to her in-laws, blinding them as to her real motivations and intentions and keeping them onside while she plans to milk Grant for all he's worth. She's also skilled in the dark arts as she manoeuvres events to try to sideline Lombard but when Grant falls seriously ill and ends up in a cheap hotel on Christmas Eve, the responses of the two women will determine pretty much how the movie ends.

I enjoyed the interplay between Grant and Lombard, especially the latter who I've not always appreciated in some of her other movies. She often has to act here without words, which must have been a rarity for her and shows considerable depth in her performance as the down-but-never-quite-out other woman. Kay Francis, a huge star in the early part of the decade, makes the most of her return to prominence with a strong portrayal of the scheming gold-digger wife.

There are a few missed beats in the story, like the habitual re-appearances of Francis's best friend, who, married as she is, wantonly throws herself at Grant, a weak attempt at comedy when Grant bumps into a like-minded drinking companion on his own unhappy Christmas Eve and Lombard's strange encounter with a leery hotel manager at the seedy hotel Grant collapses in but the rest of it is believable and I thought an interesting insight into marital conventions of the day.

Grant and Lombard never did make that comedy together but at least they made this and there's plenty of compensation in that.

Oh ye gods, the writing sucks in this film! More stiff, over wrought ladies magazine dialogue than you can shake a Harpers Bazaar at. Fans of this movie, like critic Dennis Schwartz, call it "effective melodrama" but to me it's just bad writing. Suffering most acutely from it is Carol Lombard. While Cary Grant is at least given a few effective zingers and satiric jabs to somewhat compensate for the chick flic gush he mostly has to mouth and Kay Francis at least has the fun of playing the mother of all gold digging monster wives, Lombard, one of the greatest if not the greatest comic actress in Hollywood history, is given absolutely nothing even remotely funny to do. The result is that she gives a performance that, while not boring,...Lombard was never even close to that...is, at best, a bit on the quiet side. And a quiet Carol Lombard with lousy dialogue is an aesthetic crime for which director John Cromwell and especially his scenarist, Richard Sherman, should be made to atone. Say by having to spend eternity under hair dryers in a small town beauty parlor, listening to the clientele. C plus.

"In Name Only" was a product of wonderful chemistry between Cary Grand and Carole Lombard. Kay Francis also figured into this chemistry. What I liked about Miss Francis was that she was absolutely beautiful, and she could be extremely sophisticated, and likable, even in this movie, but she also could carry out a dark side, as was evident in some of her other movies, again, as well as in this one! She could also play someone on the wrong side of the tracks, and sometimes a downright floozy. That to me is the sign of a good actress. But don't get me wrong. Not only was Carole Lombard drop-dead gorgeous, her acting ability matched her physical beauty and wit.

Trivia comments on this website refer to Kay Francis as being virtually forgotten, but in my mind, her role in this movie certainly made me sit up and take notice-and I saw it for the first time when I was in my 30's! I'm only 51 now.

In the movie I'm reviewing, I found that I had to take sides with both of the females interacting with Cary Grant. That's what made it so interesting. These days, the subject matter is obviously timeless as well, though it wasn't so much in 1939.

For a good stretch of the film, beginning at the movie's start, I was confused by what was going on. Specifically, who was abusing who in the soap opera-like movie. I finally decided that Kay Francis was the one doing the abusing and the couple of Lombard/Grant were being abused. My confusion was mostly coming from never seeing Kay Francis in such a role. In fact, Carol Lombard and Cary Grant were somewhat out of their normal characters too.

The driving force of the movie was that if a couple is not married, then they might as well not have a loving, romantic relationship at all. The relationship, so it seems, would be absolutely unacceptable to friends, parents, and society in general. In this day and age, that makes for about as dated a plotline as possible.

Having stated all of that, the movie was not terrible, at least I did not think so. I will say that someone who wants a fully contemporary movie might want to pass it by.

Cary Grant plays a man trapped in a loveless marriage and it is an era where the divorce laws in New York are not favourable to him. His wife Kay Francis is icily shrewd, she wants hold of Grant not because she loves him but he has money and she has cultivated a close relationship with his parents who are influential.

However Grant is in a tizz when he meets winsome widow Carole Lombard and her daughter. He is charmed by her but there are no long term prospects if his wife does not give her a divorce and Francis's catty friends try to make life difficult for Lombard.

This is a minor melodrama very much of its era, nothing much happens apart from Grant getting drunk and catching pneumonia. It is nice to see Francis finally exposing her true intentions not knowing Grant's parents are nearby.