Our Blushing Brides

Posted 14 March 2008 in Screening log

Rating 1930 US Dir Harry Beaumont Cast Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Dorothy Sebastian IMDb

Really wonderful: not only because it was just what I needed tonight, but also for itself. Part of a loose trilogy — I haven’t seen the first two — with different characters but generally featuring the same three actresses as young women looking for love while navigating modern city life, here moving into sound and the world of work. Crawford & co are department store clerks on their own and just getting by; film gives a wonderfully frank but generally lighthearted view on the working-class girl’s struggles (by the way, I long for these particular struggles, without romanticizing them at all). Crawford works in the lingerie department, giving an excuse for many barely dressed scenes for the audience’s — and boss Robert Montgomery’s — viewing pleasure. She’s the voice of virtue here of course, world-wise but unwilling to give an inch for the wrong man, or even the right man without a proper marriage proposal. She watches helplessly as her gal pals attach themselves to men who promise the world and leave them cold. For most of the runtime, this satisfies on both cultural/historical and entertainment levels, but of course this is still Hollywood, well-crafted and pre-Code though it may be, and our gal’s struggles end suddenly and romantically, essentially nullifying all her words of caution and leaving the contemporary female viewer as sure that love will conquer all as she might have been when she bought her ticket. But does one mind particularly? No, I’m not feeling socially responsible tonight.

Quotations

- Everybody has a right to live, and everybody has a right to love! Haven’t they, Jerry?
- Of course they have. Only you’ve got to be careful that what you find is really life and really love. Otherwise, you’re worse off than you were before.
- I’ll take that chance.
- I think I will too.
- Well I’ll tell you why I won’t. I’m pretty miserable about the life we lead, too! Only I’m afraid. No, not of what you’re thinking. I’d do anything I thought was right, regardless of what anyone else thought of it. You know, it’s like when I first went to work in the jewelry. There were gems there that you would have sworn were real, but they were fakes. And there was always something horrible about putting a real one and a fake one side by side and hardly being able to tell them apart. Listen, as bad as this is, it is real, and I don’t have to lie to anyone about it. Better still, I don’t have to lie to myself.

- When a man begins to talk about inhibitions, it’s time to look at the view.

- That’s clever. But you’re being clever at the wrong time. Let’s have a cigarette.

- When it comes to the question under discussion, I wouldn’t believe any modern girl.

1 Comment »

[...] about young working girls in booming department stores, like the delightful My Best Girl and Our Blushing Brides. Accordingly, although the only version available is unsubtitled, the plot is easy enough to [...]

Pingback by The Life Cinematic » Au bonheur des dames — 3 April 2008 @ 3 April 2008

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Our Blushing Brides

1 Comment »

Leave a comment