In The Age Of The
Marriage Made In Heaven-Maybe-Carol Lombard And James Stewart's “Made For Each
Other” (1939)-A Film Review
DVD Review
Leslie Dumont
Made For Each Other,
starring Carol Lombard, Jimmy Stewart, 1939
This film review of Made For Each Other is one of those “he
said, she said” kind of movies. No, not in the way you think about some spat
between two lovers, marriage partners or simple bedmates. Rather about how to
approach this film, this old time melodrama a genre which got many a movie
audience especially during World War II made up of waiting at home or working in
the factory women through the tough nights and working days. Not that I have
anything against old time melodramas which were the staple of date nights in
college in the days when guys paid on the date and if short of money, a chronic
problem, always suggested some such film at the second run and retro-theaters
around campus. Moreover when I was working at this publication in the days when
it came out in hard copy before I saw the writing on the wall about getting my
own by-line Josh Breslin, who still works here and who then was my companion,
let’s leave it at that, was forever taking me to such retro-theaters to watch
some melodrama or other old time film he had been assigned to review.
No, what has me in a “he
said, she said” mood was something that old time film reviewer Sam Lowell told
his now longtime companion and fellow writer here Laura Perkins to do when you
hadn’t a clue about how to go about “the hook” which every movie review rests
on. Sam said when all else fails on an oldie you can always check out the
“slice of life” edge and get the job done. That, in any case, is what Laura
told me when I asked her what the hell to do with this tear-jerker which you
however know deep in your bones is going to work out right in the end. Has to
work out right because remember those waiting at home or working in the
factories women who needed a boost to get them through those hard nights and
boredom days.
While this film is not
the worse you could ever find for the slice of mid-20th century
married life movie that it represents it is still hard for me to pick out some
points that will enlighten the reader about those times. Here is the play
though. John, an up and coming Mayfair swell bred young lawyer in New York
City, played by Jimmy Stewart, meets Jane (hey I didn’t make up the character
names but John and Jane in a now age of Trevor and Regan do signify a different
sensibility), played by Carol Lombard, a young women of unknown means, on a
business trip for an important case his big-time Yankee New York law firm is
handling. Both smitten they immediately marry on the fly something more likely
to happen once the World War comes America’s way a few years later.
This may be, and as
already signaled will turn out to be, a marriage made in heaven but the road is
long and bumpy. First off John’s high and mighty mother, an endlessly carping
type that I was all too familiar with both with my own mother growing up and
with my first husband’s mother so I could certainly sympathize with that dilemma,
disapproves of his marriage choice preferring the boss’ daughter for her charge
and then, a widow, moves in with the young marrieds and drives Jane crazy (that
mother moving in different these days when the kids are moving in or staying in
the parental home what with rents and housing prices out of reach for many
these days). Worse, hard-working steady at the wheel Johnny boy winds up
getting passed over for a partnership-the kiss of death in most law firms and
time to move on although he does not do so even when Jane steels him to ask for
a raise so they can get a little house and put dead-weight mother in the attic
or something.
If all that wasn’t
enough John and Jane have a child who before he is a few years old winds up
catching pneumonia and things look like he is a goner much to the distress of
his loving parents. Nowadays getting the right medicines for childhood
illnesses is no big deal but then whatever serums were around were sparse and
expensive (as some drugs are today as well). Johnny up against it begs his
niggardly boss to give him an advance or loan to get the drugs necessary which
have to come all the way from Salt Lake City. So here is where the nail-biter
part comes in-the part about getting the drugs to New York from there in a
blizzard. Getting through the blizzard in an open cockpit plane for crying out
loud. In the end though the child is saved, Johnny gets a raise and due to
Jane’s stoic presence during the crisis gains Johnny’s mother’s respect. That
will do it.
