Wednesday 10 April 2024

Made for Each Other (1939 John Cromwell)

Young James Stewart and Carole Lombard - a fine pairing if ever there was one, both excellent - marry in haste and then have a really shit time, culminating in a dreadful New Year's Eve party - the sight of Lombard rushing through the drunken revellers in tears, the camera dollying backwards ahead of her, is enough to make a grown man weep... but the baby gets sick... and that's when the film changes direction totally and becomes a different film entirely involving the adventure of a brave pilot with a life-saving serum, something that was lifted from Selznick's 1933 Gable picture Night Flight (the terrifying Rockies aerial footage may well have been taken from that film). And that horrible Charles Coburn emerges as a kindly uncle is just weird. So, an odd film, to be sure, written by Jo Swerling.

Gorgeous photography from Leon Shamroy. The music is uncredited. That was Ward Bond in the pilot's office.




Lucile Watson is the annoying mother-in-law, Eddie Quillan the office rival and Louise Beavers the cheerful maid. (And a word for Esther Dale who plays cook #1 and is horrible.)


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