The Divorcee (1930)

This is a film that couldn't have been made a few years later. It's classed as "pre-Code" which means that it was before films had to adhere to certain rules, to satisfy the morally superior and to prevent the feeble minds of 1930s filmgoers from being corrupted. This was known as the Hays Code. One of the rules was around upholding the sanctity of marriage, so people weren't to be shown to have affairs, and the very idea of divorce was frowned upon. In The Divorcee, affairs are had by both the husband (kind of acceptable) and the wife (an abomination), a divorce happens, and the wife goes on to live her best life, before realising the error of her ways and begging for her ex-husband to take her back.

Ted (Chester Morris) and Jerry (Norma Shearer) decide to get married while out at a party with a bunch of their pals. One of them is Paul (Conrad Nagel), who is also in love with Jerry, but he's very much in Jerry's friend zone. After learning of her engagement to Ted, he decides to drown his sorrows. He is kept company by Dorothy (Judith Wood), who seems to dote on him, even though he just sneers at her. After the party, despite other guests, including Dorothy, feeling that maybe he shouldn't get behind the wheel, they let him anyway. In his angry and drunken state, Paul is only capable of driving his car erratically and at great speed. But he is able to get it to tilt while taking corners, which is quite a skill. It's literally like a Pendolino train. Inevitably, he crashes it. Doting Dorothy comes out worst from the crash, the accident leaving her disfigured. Paul reluctantly marries her out of obligation, or by way of an apology perhaps. "Sorry I almost killed you, but I'll let you marry me now as clearly your face will offend anybody else."

Three years later, Ted and Jerry's marriage seems to be going swell. He writes great stuff (he's a journalist apparently), and Jerry does whatever she does. A sign that things are going well, and a great idea for a drinking game, is the number of times they call each other "darling." I tried to drink along, ended up on the ceiling 20 minutes into the film.

But, all is not what it seems in Ted and Jerry's seemingly perfect marriage. Ted spends a lot of time away on business. But it seems that he's been getting a bit of pleasure too while on his business trips. It all comes out when Janice, one of his business trip pleasure mates appears at an impromptu gathering at Ted and Jerry's house. Ted convinces Jerry that his dalliance with Janice meant nothing. He tells her that everything will be alright, she's overreacting, and she just needs to pull herself together. A few minutes later, he goes off on another business trip, and Jerry goes on a bender with Don (Robert Montgomery), Ted's best friend. Don reveals that everybody knew about Ted's indiscretions, but that it means nothing. He tells Jerry to pull herself together and that everything's going to be alright. And they then sleep together anyway. Bro code be damned.

When Ted returns, a skittish Jerry reveals her indiscretion, and that she's balanced their accounts. But rather than Ted dismissing her infidelity as nothing, he goes off on one and decides that they can't go on together. Not while other men are laughing at him for being married to somebody like Jerry. The shame. The horror. Or something along those lines. He asks for a divorce, and although she seems reluctant, the couple split up to go their separate ways.

Now a free 1930s woman, Jerry goes on to live her best life, letting herself be wined and dined by all manner of sleazy men in sleazy bars, and on even sleazier trains. Ted turns to drink, loses his job and decides to move to Paris.

While on one of her sleazy trips on a sleazy train, Jerry bumps into her friend-zoned chum-of-old Paul. He tells her he loves her and always has, she faints (a lot of women faint in these old films), and he tells her "there there, everything's going to be alright." He talks about how his marriage to disfigured Dorothy isn't that great. For some reason, Paul hasn't figured out she's probably a bit bitter that he nearly killed her and left her having to live her life under a black veil. Although Jerry and Paul look to start a life together, Jerry has a change of heart when she realises what this will do to poor Dorothy, and that Paul and Dorothy should honour their marriage vows. Paul gets put right back into that friend zone again, left to live a life of apparent misery with Dorothy. Jerry decides to hunt down her ex, Ted, and beg for his forgiveness. And although he attempts to play mind games some more, he eventually allows her to have him back. The end.

For 1930, this film was surprisingly bold. It showed liberal attitudes to sexual morality, was open about infidelity, brave in its portrayal of sexual double standards, and even flirted with feminism. That said, it's still flawed in its overall message. It shows how, after divorce, a woman can move onwards and upwards, but backtracks a bit by showing Jerry going back to her husband at the end of it all.

Although the film was released in 1930, it has the appearance of a 1920s film in costumes, styles, and it's clear that it's a very early talkie in the way that actors overuse gestures to communicate what's going on. An example of this is in a scene where Ted attempts to make a phone call to Jerry, as she's off having her fun with his best mate, all while peering over to check every five seconds that his train hasn't left without him.

In a way, none of the characters are all that likeable in this film. Ted is a moron, Paul is an idiot, Dorothy is a mood hoover, even before the crash, and there's some obnoxious bloke who feels the need to impersonate an Italian during one scene. Despite all this, it moves with a good pace, feels very much like a problem play, and at least attempts to handle its subject matter in a mature and progressive way. It's a shame that the Hays Code would send things backwards a few years later.