Small Town Girl (1936)
Kay is a girl living in a small rural town whose life is just too dull and repetitious to bear. One night, she meets young, handsome, and rich Bob Dakin, who asks her for directions while drunk and then proceeds to take her out on a night on the town. Kay likes the stranger, and when the drunken Bob decides that they should get married, Kay hesitates little before consenting. The morning after the affair, Bob, once sober, regrets his mistake. His strict and upright parents, however, insist that the young couple pretend marriage for 6 months before divorcing, in order to avoid bad publicity. Bob resents Kay for standing in the way of him and his fiancée, Priscilla, but Kay still hopes that he'd have a change of heart.
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Let's be realistic.
Fantastic!
Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful
It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.
Robert Taylor as a romantic leading man is just as much at home with comedy as he is with melodrama, war films and westerns. Janet Gaynor is superb and it's interesting to note that Jean Harlow was the first choice, because that would have given this picture an entirely different flavor. And here's an interesting bit of trivia: there are more than a few connections to MGM's popular Andy Hardy. The small town that Gaynor's character comes from is called Carvel. The stage play that served as the basis for the Hardy series set the action in a fictitious Idaho town called Carvel, but in most of the Andy Hardy movies, the location is much more generalized and is basically Carvel, USA. But in this film, it is clearly established that Carvel is in the east. Road signs during one of the scenes indicate that Carvel is 97 miles from Boston.Janet Gaynor would re-team with director William Wellman for A Star Is Born. Meanwhile, MGM would remake this film in 1953, with musical scenes, starring Ann Blyth and Farley Granger.
I didn't like this film as much as the other reviewers. I love a good love story, but this one left me cold. I found the entire plot totally predictable, from beginning to end. There is not a single surprise throughout the entire movie. It almost became laughable predicting what was going to happen next.The cast, however, was quite good in their performances in spite of the script. So I give them kudos for making the most of it. Gaynor is very likable, so much so that you find yourself rooting for her. Taylor of course is smashingly good-looking, but also has an approachable charm to him that endeared him to so many movie fans. I think they did a horrible job on his makeup though. His eyebrows looked painted on and the eyeshadow was too noticeable at times. Binnie Barnes was easy to hate in her portrayal as the ruthless fiancé, so she did her role justice.I think the ending was worst of all. I hated that they brought Gaynor's boyfriend, Jimm Stewart, back in the picture and had him gushing over her again. She gives the impression she might be interested, only to have Taylor show up in his fast sports car and whisk her off. I think it makes women look flighty and trifling with men's hearts. I think it did Gaynor's likable character an injustice.
Wonderful Janet Gaynor and Robert Taylor comedy depicting the differences between the upper and middle classes of society.Gaynor longs for a life outside of her town and Taylor represents everything that she wants. Though meeting him in an unusual way, and marrying him while he is drunk, he turns his part as a total heel when he becomes sober. Reluctantly, she agrees to stay with him for 6 months in pretending that there is wedded bliss.We know that the picture shall be devoted to how the two will find their way to love despite there being Taylor's fiancée, nicely played by a bitchy Binnie Barnes. Despite his cruelty to his wife, Taylor shows an element of compassion in his treating of a brain injured child. Somehow that child will become the link that will bring this couple together and start Barnes packing.
An interesting film with a playful seduction, which it does everything to avoid throughout, between a rich, young Boston doctor (Robert Taylor) from an old money family who's out carousing around in his convertible roadster after the "Big" Harvard-Yale game and by chance picks up a dissatisfied "small town girl" (Janet Gaynor) who's out aimlessly walking the streets in her little town. The socio-economic strata between old money wealth and idyllic small town middle class America (Andy Devine and James Stewart) is bridged by a love (you can't help but think it's his position and money she's after, though the film tries in just about every scene to make you believe it's real). After a few drinks at a nearby roadhouse, they stumble upon a justice of the peace in the middle of the night and (from Taylor's perspective) just for the heck of it, get married, a marriage that he must maintain for six months in light of his position in Boston society, which we see snippets of, the best one being a gala dance in Boston after they've been married for five months or so, and Taylor's original fiancé (Binnie Barnes), makes her move to reclaim him . Taylor is probably the best part in the film, though the story could have been sharper.