Consolation Marriage (1931)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Pat O'Brien and Irene Dunne seem distinctly not made for each other in this odd romance, where she, a coffee shop proprietress, and he, a sports writer, are jilted by their respective fiances, meet cute, get a nice friendship going, and decide to get married. The open-marriage conceit feels daringly modern for 1931, but the dialog's pat and the plot coincidences are hard to swallow. Their respective true loves, Myrna Loy and Lester Vail, each come back from failed marriages at about the same time, and Dunne and O'Brien each leaves his/her spouse to pick up the pieces. It's hard to see why, when Loy is playing such a vain bore, and Vail such a needy weakling, and Dunne has an uncomfortable speech where she says goodbye to her baby daughter--her baby daughter!--to run off with an old lover. We all know the leads are going to discover they really love each other, but it's done so perfunctorily, with O'Brien just remarking to Loy, "Wouldn't it be funny if we turned out to be just friends?" and bolting upstairs to Dunne just in time for the happy fadeout. That's another thing--she can't make a great deal of money running a coffee shop, and he's unemployed more often than not, yet they have a gorgeous New York townhouse. Dunne's skill is somewhat evident, and O'Brien's fast talk is always entertaining, but he's not an ideal romantic lead, and this is not a credible romance.

Shopkeeper Irene Dunne (as Mary Brown) is in love with pianist Lester Vail (as Aubrey). Sports writer Pat O'Brien (as Steve Porter) expects to marry his high school "Juliet" Myrna Loy (as Elaine). Alas, Ms. Dunne and Mr. O'Brien lose their lovers to more well-heeled partners. Then, Dunne and O'Brien meet, get drunk, and bond in friendship as a cut-rate "Bonnie and Clyde" during a wild evening. Thinking any reconciliation with their true loves is impossible, Dunne and O'Brien decide to get married. Their "Consolation Marriage" is agreed to be an "open" one, but a child keeps O'Brien home and sober more often. Then, the marriages of Mr. Vail and Ms. Loy end - and, they want Dunne and O'Brien back... Predictable and unattractive, with some emphasis on the latter.**** Consolation Marriage (10/13/31) Paul Sloane ~ Irene Dunne, Pat O'Brien, John Halliday, Myrna Loy

Since I first saw "The Awful Truth," Irene Dunne has been one of the few performers whose presence in a movie will make me watch it. No matter what.This one is a real case of no matter what.(For the record, the others include Jean Harlow, Jean Arthur, and Constance Bennett.)This is a women's picture, directed at a snail's pace.In it, Ms. Dunne sports an exceptionally unflattering hair design, which makes her virtually unrecognizable as the star of such classics as the above-mentioned "Awful Truth," Theodora Goes Wild," and "Showboat."She looks like Edna May Oliver. She looks like Eleanor Roosevelt (my greatest heroine of the past two or three hundred years but hardly a beauty.)In this poky tale, Dunne actually leaves her child briefly. The child is indeed pudgy and very unappealing but women must have stalked out of theaters at that point.She and Pat O'Brien are not the most likely of couples but they are meant in the plot not to be. They are certainly more believable than Dunne and Spencer Tracy in unendurable "A Guy Named Joe."

One of Irene Dunne's earliest features (before "Back Street" would make her a star) rewards a second look in a time of heated discussions on the sanctity of marriage.Mary Brown and Steve Porter, both jilted by their longtime sweethearts, meet up and hit it off, based as much on their mutual melancholy as anything else. On a whim, Steve proposes marriage to Mary, while acknowledging that their hearts will always belong to others. They decide their marriage will be based on their friendship alone, and each will be free to walk away at any time with no regrets.It is, of course, inevitable that the original sweethearts will each turn up and test Steve and Mary's resolve. But what is most striking to me is that midway through their marriage Mary gives birth to a baby girl. Yes, of course, this film was made pre-Code, but nonetheless it's remarkable that it would be acknowledged that these friends in a marriage of nothing but convenience would have a sexual relationship as well. The pregnancy and birth aren't even a very big deal, and Mary's and Steve's open marriage agreement continues. There is even a suggestion that the existence of the child should be no impediment to either of the spouses' decision to go his or her own way.Of course, there's a happy ending, so the point is made moot. But it's having been made at all is what makes this film, to me, a little bit more than simply a run-of-the-mill Hollywood melodrama.