Holy Matrimony (1943)

Director:

John M. Stahl

Writers:

Arnold Bennett (play)
Nunnally Johnson (writer)

Release Date:

27 August 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot:

From Arnold Bennett's novel "Buried Alive". An artist returning from years abroad takes the identity...

Plot Keywords:

Artist | Valet | Assumed Identity | Remake | Butler

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 2 wins

Cast

Monty Woolley	...	Priam Farrell
Gracie Fields	...	Alice Chalice
Laird Cregar	...	Clive Oxford
Una O'Connor	...	Sarah Leek
Alan Mowbray	...	Mr. Pennington
Melville Cooper	...	Dr. Caswell
Franklin Pangborn	...	Duncan Farll
Ethel Griffies	...	Lady Vale
Eric Blore	...	Henry Leek
George Zucco	...	Mr. Crepitude
Fritz Feld	...	Critic
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jimmy Aubrey	...	Townsman (uncredited)
William Austin	...	Critic (uncredited)
Brooks Benedict	...	Court Attendant (uncredited)
Billy Bevan	...	Cabby (uncredited)
Whit Bissell	...	Harry Leek (uncredited)
Matthew Boulton	...	Sergeant (uncredited)
Colin Campbell	...	Researcher (uncredited)
Gabriel Canzona	...	Man with Monkey (uncredited)
Edward Cooper	...	Constable (uncredited)
Alec Craig	...	Aylmer (uncredited)
Cyril Delevanti	...	Townsman (uncredited)
Leslie Denison	...	Usher (uncredited)
Barbara Denny	...	Secretary (uncredited)
Mary Field	...	Oxford's Secretary (uncredited)
E.L. Fisher-Smith	...	Cockney (uncredited)
Bess Flowers	...	Mourner (uncredited)
Richard Fraser	...	John Leek (uncredited)
Arthur Gould-Porter	...	Hat Store Clerk (uncredited)
Denis Green	...	Townsman (uncredited)
Bobby Hale	...	News Vendor (uncredited)
Charlie Hall	...	Townsman (uncredited)
Lumsden Hare	...	Benson - Lady Vale's footman (uncredited)
Sam Harris	...	Juror (uncredited)
Keith Hitchcock	...	Constable (uncredited)
Leyland Hodgson	...	Solicitor (uncredited)
Stuart Holmes	...	Jurror (uncredited)
Colin Hunter	...	Equerry (uncredited)
Olaf Hytten	...	Cockney (uncredited)
Charles Irwin	...	Constable (uncredited)
Guy Kingsford	...	Young Policeman (uncredited)
Charles Knight	...	Organist (uncredited)
Marten Lamont	...	Townsman (uncredited)
Dorothy Lloyd	...	Parrot Voice Imitator (uncredited)
Thomas Louden	...	Court clerk (uncredited)
Montagu Love	...	Judge (uncredited)
Wilbur Mack	...	Mourner (uncredited)
Edwin Maxwell	...	King Edward VII (uncredited)
Harold Miller	...	Mourner / Juror (uncredited)
William H. O'Brien	...	Reporter (uncredited)
Milton Parsons	...	Clerk (uncredited)
Cyril Ring	...	Mourner / Spectator at Westminister Abbey (uncredited)
John Rogers	...	Lounger (uncredited)
Yorke Sherwood	...	Cabby (uncredited)
Geoffrey Steele	...	Matthew Leek (uncredited)
Tom Stevenson	...	Hubert the Postman (uncredited)
David Thursby	...	Process Server (uncredited)
Tudor Williams	...	Canon (uncredited)
Eric Wilton	...	Captain of Waiters (uncredited)
Ian Wolfe	...	Strawley (uncredited)

Directed by
John M. Stahl

Writing credits
Arnold Bennett		(play "The Great Adventure")
Nunnally Johnson		(writer)

Produced by
Nunnally Johnson	....	producer

Original Music by
Cyril J. Mockridge

Cinematography by
Lucien Ballard

Film Editing by
James B. Clark

Art Direction by
James Basevi
J. Russell Spencer		(as Russell Spencer)

Set Decoration by
Paul S. Fox
Thomas Little

Costume Design by
René Hubert

Makeup Department
Guy Pearce	....	makeup artist

Art Department
Paul S. Fox	....	associate set decorator

Sound Department
Roger Heman Sr.	....	sound
E. Clayton Ward	....	sound

Special Effects by
Fred Sersen	....	special effects

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Eugene Joseff	....	costume jeweller (uncredited)

Music Department
Emil Newman	....	musical director
Arthur Morton	....	orchestrator (uncredited)
Herbert W. Spencer	....	orchestrator (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Distributors

• Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (1943) (USA) (theatrical)
• Státní Pujcovna Filmu (194?) (Czechoslovakia) (theatrical)

Also Known As:

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:S | Sweden:Btl

Company:

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Movie Connections:

Version of The Great Adventure (1921)

A Forgotten Literary Giant

When talking about the great writers of Great Britain from 1880 - 1940, one thinks of Wilde, Shaw, Wells, James, Conrad, Hardy, Kipling, Stevenson - maybe Conan Doyle, Beerbohm, Chesterton. There is one name that was once fully worthy of being listed in this group, but this person has sort of vanished (except for one novel) from public attention. The writer was Arnold Bennett. In his day novels like CLAYHANGER, RICEYMAN STEPS, THE CARD, and BURIED ALIVE were known around the English-speaking world. Bennett was the chronicler of the "Five Town" area of London, where his main fiction characters (usually lower or blue-collar types) came from - for Bennett came from that area originally. In the film THE CARD (with Alec Guinness and Glynnis John) there is a statement at the start that mentions the Five-Towns.

But after Bennett died in 1931, his readership disappeared. The sole exception was THE OLD WIVES TALE, a grown-up view of the unsuccessful married lives of two sisters. The others were basically forgotten.

Aside from Guinness's THE CARD, the only other Bennett novel to reach the screen was BURIED ALIVE, made twice into sound films (in 1933 with Roland Young and Lillian Gish, and in this 1943 film, HOLY MATRIMONY). It is a wonderful comedy, and gave Monty Wooley another specialized film to give his patented irascibility full flower. Here he plays Priam Farli, the leading English painter of his day, who returns from the South Seas to be knighted, only to find that his dead valet (Eric Blore) is mistakenly identified as him. The valet is buried in Westminster Abbey (with King Edward VII in attendance) while Wooley watches from the public benchs. Wooley sets up a house, under his valet's name, and hires Gracie Fields as his housekeeper. Eventually they fall in love and marry. But money is running out, and Fields (noting her husband's artistic abilities) sells several to a dealer (Laird Cregar). Cregar recognizes them as Farli's pictures and sells them very quickly. But one of the buyers finds that the picture she bought was of an incident that happened after Farli died. Cregar is sued, and confronts Wooley. Eventually it boils down to a second legal problem: that Wooley finds his valet was married before, and never got a divorce. Confronted with bigamy charges (the first wife, Una O'Connor, can't recognize Wooley is her husband or not), Wooley is finally confronted with the only way of identifying himself as Farli or the Valet - by physical means that he opposes revealing.

All the performances are wonderful, led by Wooley and Fields (who would do a second film, MOLLY AND ME, in a year). Cregar's Clive Oxford again showed he could play comedy (possibly even more subtlety than we think - Hector Arce's biography of Tyrone Power mentions that Power noticed that his friend Cregar coughed in a suggestive manner as though to suggest that Oxford was a homosexual who disapproved of his secretary's preening herself). Even George Zucco, normally a master of film menace, here managed to portray a prosecuting barrister doing slow burn after slow burn when dealing with the irrascible Wooley in court. Altogether a grand show. And a good place to go in order to get reacquainted with a forgotten literary master.