Love can make you strong and it can make you pitifully weak. We've seen many movies in which love has given the protagonist immeasurable strength--both strength of will and physical strength. In "No Other Woman" love made Anna Stanley (Irene Dunne) so utterly weak.
Anna was the daughter of a steelworker and married a steelworker contrary to the fact she claimed she wouldn't. She loved Jim Stanley (Charles Bickford) too much. Still, Anna wanted to get out of the steel town where everyone lived in the same type of company houses and never did anything. She married a steelworker, but she had plans to get them out.
She was presented an opportunity to get out of her steel mill life when her friend Joe Zarcovia (Eric Linden) discovered a dye formula. Her husband Jim sank all of their money into Joe's invention and it paid off. In no time the Stanleys were millionaires and Jim was acquiring other businesses. He was spending a lot of time in New York and it turned out that a woman is what kept him there. Just like your typical 1930's rich guy, Jim had a mistress (Gwili Andre).
Anna found out about the mistress. She also found out that Jim wanted to divorce her in order to marry the mistress. She denied him a divorce. She didn't deny him the divorce to make him suffer or to keep her cushy lifestyle, she denied him the divorce because she loved him and once he was finished with his mistress, Margot, she'd be there for him.
Some may see this as strength. I do not. This is a case where love has crippled the poor woman and made her into a willing victim. And not only did she deny him the divorce, she let herself be dragged through the mud in court trying to fight the divorce. It was humiliating. Jim paid witnesses to hurl all kinds of foul and unsubstantiated claims against her while she sat there listening to the mendacious attacks.
If I didn't think she was weak already, the divorce court scene certainly made up my mind. If I were her, the moment I heard the first lying witness I would've tapped out. "The divorce is yours, let's stop this circus. If you want to divorce me so badly that you'd assail my character and accuse me of infidelity, then I don't want to be married to you anyway." But the ever faithful and hopelessly in love Anna bore it all because, perhaps, sometime later "Jim will regret it."
AND!?
So what if he regrets it, the damage is done. Someone may regret committing murder but that doesn't bring the victim back to life. He may regret everything he's done to Anna, but that doesn't erase his cheating or erase his character assassination, but to the Mary Sue and saintly Anna it does. Ugh.
Free on Odnoklassniki.
Anna was the daughter of a steelworker and married a steelworker contrary to the fact she claimed she wouldn't. She loved Jim Stanley (Charles Bickford) too much. Still, Anna wanted to get out of the steel town where everyone lived in the same type of company houses and never did anything. She married a steelworker, but she had plans to get them out.
She was presented an opportunity to get out of her steel mill life when her friend Joe Zarcovia (Eric Linden) discovered a dye formula. Her husband Jim sank all of their money into Joe's invention and it paid off. In no time the Stanleys were millionaires and Jim was acquiring other businesses. He was spending a lot of time in New York and it turned out that a woman is what kept him there. Just like your typical 1930's rich guy, Jim had a mistress (Gwili Andre).
Anna found out about the mistress. She also found out that Jim wanted to divorce her in order to marry the mistress. She denied him a divorce. She didn't deny him the divorce to make him suffer or to keep her cushy lifestyle, she denied him the divorce because she loved him and once he was finished with his mistress, Margot, she'd be there for him.
Some may see this as strength. I do not. This is a case where love has crippled the poor woman and made her into a willing victim. And not only did she deny him the divorce, she let herself be dragged through the mud in court trying to fight the divorce. It was humiliating. Jim paid witnesses to hurl all kinds of foul and unsubstantiated claims against her while she sat there listening to the mendacious attacks.
If I didn't think she was weak already, the divorce court scene certainly made up my mind. If I were her, the moment I heard the first lying witness I would've tapped out. "The divorce is yours, let's stop this circus. If you want to divorce me so badly that you'd assail my character and accuse me of infidelity, then I don't want to be married to you anyway." But the ever faithful and hopelessly in love Anna bore it all because, perhaps, sometime later "Jim will regret it."
AND!?
So what if he regrets it, the damage is done. Someone may regret committing murder but that doesn't bring the victim back to life. He may regret everything he's done to Anna, but that doesn't erase his cheating or erase his character assassination, but to the Mary Sue and saintly Anna it does. Ugh.
Free on Odnoklassniki.