Born to Love (1931)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Must See Movie...

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Not uninteresting pre-Code soap suds, wherein Yankee nurse Bennett, in London (nice historical touch: a bus advertising "Chu Chin Chow") meets Captain Joel McCrea, they have a torrid romance and pledge their troth, and while carrying his child she hears he's dead. We know he's not--he's second-billed, and there's an hour to go--but she thinks he is, so she marries Paul Cavanagh on the rebound and we wait for the fireworks that will erupt when McCrea returns. Connie's histrionic- -she gets to love, yell, sob, scream, and put on a phony British accent, even though she's playing American--and Paul Stein's camera likes to linger on her overemoting. But Joel McCrea was certainly the personification of solid masculine American values circa 1918 or 1931, and his sincere underplaying nicely complements her overplaying. The screenplay doesn't hate her for having a child out of wedlock, and the happy ending isn't that happy. So, by 1931 standards, it's an adult movie. Just not a very good one.

They don't make 'em like this anymore. But the weeper genre was popular with the ladies once upon a time, and Bennett led the pack of martyrs. Her suffering in Born to Love is all the sadder because it could have been so easily avoided if she had just answered her husband's questions frankly and fully. But not Bennett. Her evasiveness followed by her unforgivably cruel words turned this kindly man's love for her into hate. But still, she didn't deserve what she got.Variety's reviewer wrote of the plot, "Constance Bennett is ruined again and has another baby" and "How the women love it, that sobbing stuff." Bennett's hand-wringing and heavy emoting was criticized, but I thought her acting was exactly how her character would respond to the shocks the script writers threw at her. Regardless, Variety saw the film's box-office potential, "Bennett isn't much of an actress here but still drawing as ever because of this story." Only a year after this huge hit, the drawing power of Bennett and stories like Born to Love would lose favor with fickle moviegoers, and she and her producers were unable to keep her career from sliding downhill until Topper reinvented her as a sophisticated comedienne.This was Joel McCrea's first (of 4) teamings with Bennett as well as his first major role. He's wonderful to watch and Bennett's undying love for him is believable. Cavanaugh is excellent and manages to be sympathetic even while being cold-hearted and vengeful.

Constant Bennett is a beautiful Red Cross nurse and Joel McCrea her lover in "Born to Love." The story held my interest but it is truly a turgid melodrama with some very old-fashioned, over the top acting from Bennett.Bennett and McCrea meet during World War I in London, fall in love, have sex; he leaves for battle and is later presumed dead. Pregnant, she marries Paul Cavanagh, Sir Wilfred Drake, who comes off like a nice guy at first. When McCrea turns up again, Bennett is determined to be loyal to her husband. But when he realizes she's seen McCrea and is still in love with him, the jig is up. In the divorce, Sir Wilfred gets full custody of the child. And here's where the going gets rough for the viewer, not to mention the characters! McCrea is adorable; Cavanagh is the type of leading man one doesn't see anymore. He comes off as very unattractive in this, though in his 32-year career, this often wasn't the case. As for Bennett, one has seen her to much better advantage. This is one of those creaky movies that's interesting from a precode and artifact point of view, but you can see these two stars in better films.

In BORN TO LOVE, Constance Bennett (Doris) and Joel McRea (Barry) are lovers who meet during the last weeks of the First World War. London is portrayed as a city in imminent danger of bombs from aircraft. They meet and predictably fall in love despite the chaos and confusion that surround them. There is an interesting scene in which they make love, one that is prudishly suggested off screen, yet one that in just a few years would have been banned by Hollywood as overtly salacious. The plot is the contrived package of Barry's reported death, forcing Doris to marry another. The second half of the film is less melodramatic and more of an acerbic commentary on the harshness of an English divorce system that allows a rich and titled husband to retain custody of a child over the wishes of a impecunious mother. There is an encoded ideology in the film that does not hide the fact that poor women who marry titled men can expect no mercy or kindness from a patriarchal legal system. BORN TO LOVE nevertheless carries the audience to a satisfying if not predictable conclusion of the need for true love to triumph over formidable societal obstacles.