Vacation from Marriage (1945) User Reviews

A husband and wife go in separate directions during WW II

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 14 March 2009]

Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat give wonderful performances in "Vacation from Marriage," a 1945 film directed by Alexander Korda. It's the story of a boring British couple - she's a mousy housewife prone to colds, and he's a mousy accountant who lives by a strict routine. When World War II hits, he joins the Navy and she joins the WRENS. He becomes very healthy, authoritative, and adventurous, and she becomes glamorous and independent. When faced with 10 days leave after nearly three years apart, neither one is looking forward to seeing the other again.

This very enjoyable film is heightened by the performances of the leads, both of whom ably demonstrate their change of personality and appearance after a few years of war. Glynis Johns is very good in a supporting role as well.

Highly recommended.

A nice "little" film about real characters and their growth as people

[llltdesq · 8/10 · 27 February 2001]

This film isn't a classic movie for the ages. It's probably not gong to be considered in any discussions of the "best" of all time. What it is, is a nice, charming delightful film about two people who have their nice routine lives changed by a little event-WWII! Over time, they change, they grow as people often do. The main question is, will their marriage grow and change, or will it flop around and expire like a fish out of water. The fact is, you come to truly care about them over the course of the film, in no small part because Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr deliver good peformances in what is a character-driven film. Well worth watching.

Entertaining Comedy of Manners

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 12 March 2009]

The English title, "Perfect Strangers," was changed to "Vacation From Marriage" for its USA distribution. It's amazing that it ever was finished. Aside from a good deal of trouble concerning the script, it was filmed in 1944 when there was a shortage of sets and equipment and everything else in England except myriad Buzz Bombs.

The story had been done before. Two stodgy spouses undergo some sort of traumatic experience and find their marriage improved as a result. Here, the spouses are the stuffy and boring Robert Donat ("The Thirty Nine Steps") and the whimpering hypochondriacal Deborah Kerr. The traumatic event is a three-year separation for war service -- he in the Navy and she a Wren.

During the separation they change by force of circumstances. Donat shaves his mustache and has a fling with a blond. Kerr, under the guidance of the fey Glynis Johns, has her hair redone and acquires self confidence. When they are brought back to England to spend their leave together, each liberated spouse still carries the image of the stultifying other. They didn't even kiss good-bye at their departure. Kerr, afraid to enter their apartment, calls him hysterically and demands a divorce. They meet at a nearby pub, The Coach and Horses, and each is surprised but wary at the change in the other. They flirt, quarrel, part, and make up. It ends happily with an embrace in front of the window of their flat, overlooking a blitzed London overhung with barrage balloons, a fresh new morning.

It's all very well done. There aren't any belly laughs but a viewer may be forgiven for smiles of recognition at the minor ironies of life that are on full display here.

Donat is his smooth self. Kerr is winsome and girlish, slightly wall eyed, her voice slightly quivering, and completely winning, so innocent in appearance and demeanor that it would be obscene to think of her legs. I couldn't help it so I did it anyway.

You'll probably enjoy this. The script isn't high flown. This isn't Shakespeare; it's everyday life. But all the characters are precise and somewhat elegant in their speech. The Brits always sound a little more elegant than the rest of us.

a quiet treasure--should be on anyone's list of romance films

[whitecargo · 15 October 2000]

"Perfect Strangers" was made in war-scarred Britain in 1945 and it has that unmistakable flavour and appeal of the small, b&w 1940's English pictures of the time--trustworthy, tender without being sentimental, sweet, reticent, and positive. The epitome of the wartime film designed to boost people's morale.

Like many pre-50's films that catch my interest, it has the charming buoyancy of that other, (and now otherworldly) WWII era--before Twentieth Century attitudes had crystallized into their currently cold, disaffected, and jaundiced condition that forms our modern outlook. Films like "Perfect Strangers" (also known as "Vacation from Marriage") are the perfect antidote--tiny time capsules of hopefulness, naivete, and innocence that, certainly in the art of the cinema, can't be achieved anymore, no matter what the budget.

Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr are well cast and their performances seem effortlessly on-the-mark in this film. The two play a shy, humdrum, and rather ineffectual couple living in London during the Blitz. Kerr is a glum housewife to the staid, stodgy Donat, who works meekly in London as a bank teller.

Even though around them all is chaos in the city, they are frozen, as it were, in their daily routines: work, eat, sleep. These are two people to whom nothing much ever happens. Their marriage is in a rut but they dont know it. They are vaguely dissatisfied with themselves, but they dont know why. Each is right on the edge of being bored with the another. Certainly they are both bored with their lives.

(This is one of those couples of a type that one still encounters today--a pair of simple, unimaginative souls that, in the first flush of romance, dont envision needing anything more out of life than being married to each other).

But their dull routines are suddenly shaken up by wartime events--both are unexpectedly called to active service. This turn of events falls like a bolt of lightning on the couple. Donat reluctantly enters the Navy as an able seaman, and Kerr becomes a WREN. The story picks up pace from this point on. The two agree to keep in touch and meet whenever they are on leave.

However, both soon have their hands full trying to adjust to the rigors of service life: not just the hazards of wartime but more importantly, the trials of intense, abrupt socialization with their new comrades.

Each undergoes a separate transformation of character: they make friends, win esteem from their peers, prove themselves to be fit and able in all of their duties and even distinguish themselves in the war effort. In short, they thrive in their unexpected "vacation" and in the process, discover all sorts of things about themselves that they never would have guessed previously.

When it comes time for the couple to meet up again, each dreads having the old marriage relations reestablished. Each assumes the other has not changed or developed in any way. (Both Donat and Kerr are even getting tempting offers and romantic attentions from others at this point).

When they meet, in one of the sweetest moments in the film, they fail to even recognize each other. Its how the two get back together which comprises the rest of the storyline of the film.

Its a little treasure of a film: well-made, un-selfconscious, unassuming, and hits its mark perfectly. If you like a simple, honest story about people and people in love, give it a try.

"I used to feel like a racehorse dragging a milk-cart"

[ackstasis · 7/10 · 8 December 2009]

In all good love stories, two people meet for the first time, and there's something there. Exactly what that "something" is, nobody can say. A spark, a special chemistry… most likely (and perhaps least romantically) it is our subconscious recollection of the author's dramatic obligation – this man and this woman must fall in love. 'Perfect Strangers (1945)' {released in the US as "Vacation from Marriage"} is unusual in that its star-crossed lovers have not only met before, but have been married for years. Robert (Robert Donat) and Catherine (Deborah Kerr) are a meek British couple who are separated for three years by WWII, each partner taking a role in active combat. When the pair finally reunite, both have changed so tremendously that they find themselves unwilling to return to their mundane former lives.

Robert is a shy and submissive accountant. Just as his job requires perfect balance and order, so too does his life depend on the routine exactness of habit and ritual. In the early part of the film, his behaviour is directed by a stream-of-consciousness voice-over, which maps out conversations in advance, with little avail. Catherine, beset by a perpetual sniffle, is a tired and delicate young thing, the sort of wife that Robert aptly describes as "dependable." At the onset of the War, both join the Navy, and become completely different people as a result. This positive depiction of War – as a great big adventure, more than anything else – was typical during the early 1940s, and 'Perfect Strangers' doesn't, in this regard, add much to Carol Reed's 'The Way Ahead (1944).' Instead, that both Robert and Catherine become changed people is accepted as a given.

Robert Donat's casting in the film was quite deliberate. At the film's beginning, he sports a moustache that obviously references his shy, reliable teacher in 'Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939).' During the War, he loses the moustache, and the transformation in his screen persona is dramatic: he's suddenly the handsome war hero of so many Hollywood action pictures. Deborah Kerr, too, attains a youthful sexual vitality that sees her transformed from a meek, "dependable" housewife to a veritable "pin-up girl." Even though their transformations have run parallel to each other, there is an undeniable rift present; one skillful match-cut sees Robert and Catherine dancing, but in the arms of other partners. There's a moment in the film, when the troubled couple glimpse each other in the light for the first time in three years, and… there's a spark. Just like they've never met.

a delightful surprise

[rupie · 7/10 · 18 March 2017]

What a wonderful movie!

As is often the case I was drawn to it by the names - Robert Donat, Deborah Kerr, Glynis Johns and Alexander Korda. How can you go wrong? I learned later that this was the flick that made Kerr a star, and understandably so. Glynis Johns is always a delight to the eye.

The story line - a humdrum couple separated and transformed by the war - sounds like the makings for a pretty humdrum soap opera, but the script is very well done and involves us in the stories of these two people as they drift away from each other (or so they think).

The great Alexander Korda's direction is spot on and masterful. Particularly impressive are the cutaway shots from husband to wife as each of them travels home to meet each other on leave after 3 years apart from each other, he in the Navy, she in the Wrens (Britain's naval corps for women). We learn from their conversations with their traveling companions about their apprehensions about reuniting. The scene where they face each other with their doubts is shot completely in the dark, a master stroke, reflecting the fact that they really don't know each other anymore.

It's also a very good snapshot of wartime life in Britain.

Incidentally, it seems the film was originally released in a longer version titled "Perfect Strangers."

Altogether a wonderful find. Thank you Turner Classic Movies.

Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr star in this Academy Award winning story

[jacobs-greenwood · 7/10 · 11 December 2016]

Produced and directed by Alexander Korda, and written by Clemence Dane, this above average romance drama features Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr in the leading roles, and Glynis Johns, Ann Todd, and Roland Culver in the only other credited parts.

Donat, who made only 20 films in his career, had already earned his Best Actor Oscar (on his second and last nomination) for Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), which helped launch Greer Garson's career. Though Kerr got her big break after a handful of films playing three different roles in her previous film The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), she had not yet achieved great recognition nor would she earn her first (of six, unrewarded) Best Actress nomination until 1950 (for Edward, My Son (1949)). So, this film was, in effect, one of her first starring roles; and it's a good one, playing opposite Donat. Plus, Dane's Original Story won an Academy Award!

Donat and Kerr play a young London couple who've fallen into the dull routine of a 5 year marriage until he joins the British Navy in April, 1940; she then signs up for service as well. Separated by war for more than 3 years, the two grow so much individually that each doubts they are still compatible with their spouse, especially since each has "tasted" a relationship with another. They finally get a chance to see one another again when each receives a 10 day leave simultaneously.

Robert Wilson (Donat) has a rather mundane life: he's an accountant who's plain looking wife Catherine (Kerr) always seems to have a cold. The only interruption in their daily routine is his annual two week vacation which they always spend at a seaside resort with others from his company. Just before his five year anniversary with his employer, Robert is drafted into the Navy where he finds himself assigned to the shore battery, protecting England's coastline during World War II.

Bored with being home alone, Catherine joins the service herself, as a messenger in the women's corp. Delicate Robert grows into a healthy man during his service while Catherine, with help from her team leader Dizzy Clayton (Johns), learns to live without her husband's restrictions (no cigarettes or lipstick). When Robert is injured during a particular engagement, he gets to know his attractive nurse Elena (Todd). On his last night in the hospital, he takes Elena out for dinner and dancing and learns that she's the widow of a famous explorer. They share some intimate, though platonic moments together.

Likewise, Catherine also meets another, Dizzy's cousin Richard (Culver), who sees her differently than her husband ever did (and for good reason, she's changed her appearance). Richard spends a lot of time with Catherine and tells her that he's fallen in love with her. Though flattered, she does not reciprocate.

After three years of letter writing, Robert & Catherine finally get leaves that will enable them to reunite. Robert returns home with one of his peers (Caven Watson, uncredited) while Catherine returns with Elena. As each discusses their spouse with their travel mate, it is clear that both husband & wife are apprehensive about their rendezvous. Each is hesitant because each realizes that they have changed greatly while assuming that the other has not. They both believe themselves to still be the center of their spouse's universe.

As they get closer to reuniting, Catherine can't go through with it. She phones Robert and tells him that she's not sure she even wants to return to him. They meet in a local pub where they notice the physical changes (e.g. her hair, his physique) in one another. While they talk, and then dance (for the first time), they observe other changes in one another.

The couple is then joined by their traveling companions, who notice (and remark about) the differences between what they'd been told and what they see. Robert's friend Scotty says too much to Catherine about what he'd learned from her husband such that she gets angry and insists that their next step is divorce. The couple's antagonism escalates into some verbal disagreements outside the pub which finally causes them to go their separate ways.

After an angry Robert storms off into the night, Catherine realizes that he was once her whole life. Then, back at the couple's former flat, she fondly recounts her first impressions of Robert, and the events which led to their marriage, to Elena.

Meanwhile, Robert (whose friend has disappeared altogether) stalks around the bombed out streets and thinks about Catherine. He decides to return to get his things, as quietly as possible, from the flat. When he enters, he doesn't at first notice that Catherine, who couldn't sleep herself, is sitting in the window. Bombs had destroyed the (claustrophobic) wall outside their flat to fall such that they now have "a room with a view" of the devastated city. They talk of (London's) rebuilding, which becomes a double entendre discussion of their own marriage ... which they agree to try, kissing in the final frames.

Also known as Perfect Strangers (1945).

Great stories never die. Or do they?

[perrylyn-1 · 10/10 · 7 April 2005]

There are certain stories that are so original and intrinsically entertaining that they get reinvented every 20 or 30 years. Case in point, "The shop around the corner", which became "In the good old summertime" and finally "You've got mail". That's the kind of originality that runs through this story. Premise: A young married couple about to be parted for 3 years, both to do duty in her Majesty's Royal Navy in WWII. He's timid and boring. She's mousy and sickly. He becomes bold and manly. She blossoms into an attractive and assertive woman. Both now dread having to meet each other again after several years separation, remembering only how each partner use to be like. What happens when they meet again is pure fun. Why are there no remakes of this terrific story? We've had plenty of new wars to use as a background. People still change, sometimes for the better, during long separations. I have a VHS copy of this story taped from TV years ago. I only wish they would sell this movie again, while we wait for the updated script someone should write.

A probable situation with two outstanding actors showing two faces of the same character.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 22 September 2012]

Boring as an evening with "Family Guy's" Buzz Killington, the predictable marriage of Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr has gotten so staid that they seem too uninterested in the other party to hate them. They do what they need to do. She gets up, prepares his breakfast, he gets ready to go to work, and they are barely able to pucker up to kiss each other goodbye. But this is the beginning of World War II, and Donat must go off to combat. Kerr too gets involved, and as a result, they don't see each other for four years. A lot can happen in four years, and in the case of Kerr, she spruces up her hair, puts on some makeup, and begins to hang out with the gregarious Glynis Johns. He shaves off that horrid mustache, takes off a few pounds thanks to some military exercise, and learns to flirt. Now he is coming home and each of them decides it is time to move on. They meet in the dark, discuss their wish for a divorce, and walk into a restaurant where with the lights on, they see each other really for the first time.

I believe this appears to be a rather realistic storyline because in World War II, many women found themselves making a living, becoming independent, and when the men returned, they were shocked by what they found. The men too went through changes as war, even as horrific as previous ones had been, was entering a modern era, and the enemy was more ruthless and determined than ever. The problem isn't one easily to blame on a mediocre film. Because the original views of this couple is meant to be boring, the actors give boring performances. That is part of what they were called to do. Then, war happens, the two change, and presto, chango, Kerr and Donat are as we know them from more glamorous roles. I do not find the film boring in the sense of sleep inducing, but unless you are really prepared for a dull vision of what this marriage is, you might find yourself yawning in spots. The second half of course livens up, sort of a mutual "My Fair Lady" where the guttersnipe and the chimney sweep somehow got ahold of their own fairy godmother and changed into what they had the potential of being before but had been unaware of. So the acting of the film is not really outstanding, although Johns gives a truly showy performance, but the point is really about story, not acting. Technically, the film (a British MGM production) is superb as many British films seemed farther advanced in that area than American films. (Check out the original version of "Gaslight", as well as "A Canterbury Tale", "Stairway to Heaven" and especially "Black Narcissus" to see what I mean).

In retrospect, this film is probably what the sequel to "Mrs. Miniver" really should have endeavored to be, not the confusing mess that became "The Miniver Story" years after people really cared what happened to those characters.

"You've frizzed your hair out like a blond gollywog!"

[silenceisgolden · 10/10 · 11 October 2001]

What a screenplay this movie has! It's wonderful! It's a simple story but it's executed wonderfully! You truly feel for the main characters. Deborah Kerr has never been a favorite of mine but she is wonderful in this film. Robert Donat, as usual, is brilliant! I highly recommend this to fans of classic romances. It is sweet, humorous in parts, and REAL! I wish Donat had done more films when he was around, but I shouldn't complain. I'm just glad he was smart enough to always take good roles in quality films. Kerr and Donat sparkle in this and Glynis Johns is so perky! Like a little cheerleader! This is great fun! I'll stop rambling now, if this is ever shown on TCM, you must watch it!

Great cast--comical touches--predictable ending

[kijii · 6/10 · 27 November 2016]

This Korda film is a fairly good comedy that won an Oscar for Best Original Story. It starts out a little slow and the ending is fairly predictable; however, it is loaded with some of the best British film actors of that time and the story's process is full of humor and very good touches.

As the film opens, we see the picture of a boring, routine marriage. Robert Wilson (Robert Donat) has worked as clerk in a large office for 5 years (minus 8 weeks). It is 1940 and Bob has just been drafted into the British Royal Navy for the duration of the war. For all men working for FIVE YEARS OR MORE, it's the company policy to hold their jobs and continue their pay level by making up the difference between what they allow them to collect (during the war) and what the military pays them. Bob is hopeful that his 4 years and 44 weeks with the company will make him a five-year man. It doesn't. He loses both his company's job security and its partial pay supplement.

After this wimpy man climbs breathlessly up the stairs to his London flat, he tells his mousy wife, Catherine (Deborah Kerr). She merely shrugs it off with a sneeze and sniff from her perpetual cold.

Bob reports to the navy training camp and starts writing Cathy. She soon joins the WRENs (the British version of the WAVES), and they both dutifully write each other. As time passes they both become more competent people, leading more exciting lives in the service than they ever had during their marriage at home. Gradually, their letter writing starts to wane and their positive memories of each other start to fade; their memories become stuck on each other's most negative attributes.

While in the service, Cathy commanding officer, Dizzy (Glynis Johns), introduces her to her cousin, Richard (Roland Culver). She becomes infatuated with this worldly man who paints her portrait and teaches her to dance.

Both Bob and Cathy do some semi-heroic things in the service, building their confidence in themselves. After Bob's hands are burned while in action, he hospitalized to recuperate with his new Scottish buddy, Scotty (Edward Rigby). While there, he falls briefly in love with his recently-widowed nurse, Elena (Ann Todd). Her role is similar to that that Richard has with Cathy: passing flings that make them feel good about themselves.

After three and half years of service, they both get leaves to return home--at the same time!!. However, neither is too anxious to see the other. When they take their leaves, each brings along their new service buddies: Cathy brings Dizzy and Bob brings Scotty.

Of course, they have to get reacquainted, review their past views of each other, and introduce their new selves to each other. Though the outcome of the film is fairly obvious, the process of the renewed romance between the two 'new' people is entertaining, with some fireworks and protestations about each other's memories of their 'former' marriage.

Thrown from a rut

[AlsExGal · 9/10 · 18 August 2012]

This is a film on an often unexplored aspect of World War II - how couples grew apart after years of separation due to the service of one or both in the military. What makes this film so unusual is that it is exploring the topic - albeit in a rather light hearted and humorous fashion - at the very end of the war rather than a few years later.

In this case the couple (Deborah Kerr as Catherine Wilson and Robert Donat as Robert Wilson) really don't grow apart as a couple as much as they grow as individuals. They are both mousy plain almost invisible people prior to the war, seemingly happy in their routine. Then in the spring of 1940 Robert enters the British navy and Catherine enters the British equivalent of the WAVEs - the WRENs. There they are both tested, find their courage and their voice, and find the attention of and feel attraction to members of the opposite sex, all the while with each remembering the other as they were before the war and feeling somewhat disappointed at the idea of resuming their mousy existences - and marriage - after the war.

Then comes what should be a happy event - after three years apart both are granted a ten days leave - time enough to reunite and get to know each other again ... or not. I'll let you see what happens as they both return to their prewar flat with all the enthusiasm of the condemned to their execution.

Everything in this production is outstanding - cinematography, makeup, and of course stellar jobs by the entire cast. I would have never thought Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat could ever have generated any chemistry together, but the proof is in the pudding. I highly recommend it.

When spouses come marching home.

[st-shot · 6/10 · 26 June 2023]

The Wilsons (Robert Donat, Deborah Kerr) are a drab British couple leading dull ordinary lives when World War Two separates them for three years as he goes off to the Royal Navy while she joins the Wrens (Womens Royal Naval Service). Shy and retiring before the war they slowly acclaimate to the service and the responsibility that comes with it. Away from each other, they also flirt with infidelity, making them question their marriage and its future.

The tepid pair are gently played by Donat and Kerr to a point where their transformation rings hollow in moments of confrontation with Donat the least convincing, Kerr barely, with the uniforms not only making the man but the woman as both see action and mature overnight.

Charles Korda's direction is cautious and uneven as he treads lightly around the adultery aspect with both. George Perinel's cinematography provides some dramatic backdrops but this British hybrid of screwball meets "Best Years..." simply fails to jell as comedy or comment.

A film containing some good sequences

[darryn.mcatee · 5/10 · 2 May 2000]

Overall this film has dated and lacks depth. However it contains some good sequences. The best involves the cross-cutting between the principals as they journey toward their home after three years apart. In a shot which seems to anticipate Bergman, we see a close-up two-shot of Deborah Kerr and Glynis Johns. Kerr faces camera expressing her doubts and concerns with Glynis Johns in profile to one side. The other very good sequence is in the pub after they have agreed to divorce, a scene treated with a sensitive touch. Deborah Kerr adds complexity to her role. Glynis Johns is excellent as an independent-minded female, a role model situated half-way between old-fashioned suffrage and post-war feminism. Unfortunately, the implications for gender roles in a post-war Britain are cast aside in favour of a romantic resolution.

Lovely film

[Kitty-47 · 12 May 1999]

This is an excellent movie about spouses rediscovering each other. Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr are perfect as a mousy and dull couple who are transformed by the challenges of war and a separation from each other. It's rare to find a movie that focuses on a married couple in this way. This is a film for romantics and, since I am one, I recommend it strongly.

A movie whose outcome was determined by necessity

[richard-1787 · 7/10 · 31 March 2022]

This movie won an Oscar for best writing, original story, and that says something when you remember that it was released in 1945, as millions of men, after having served in the war, were returning to their wives, many of whom had gone through live-changing experiences on the home front during their absence. Yes, there would be clashes, as two now very different individuals met each other. But that could not lead to divorce, not in 1945. So the movie had to find a way of resolving those differences and reuniting the couple. How it does that may not please all 21st century viewers, especially women, but they need to remember that any other conclusion probably would not have been allowed by the film censors of the day.

If you can look past the ending at what happens before, you'll find a fairly obvious but well-acted movie. The Wilsons, especially Robert Wilson, are almost comically boring in the first part of the movie. And then they each blossom into far more interesting individuals very quickly once they enter the war and have to deal with life and death issues. Donat and Kerr were both first-rate actors, and they manage to give a third dimension to what could have remained very flat, stereotypical caricatures.

And Ann Todd is truly beautiful to look at in her short scenes as a nurse.

Nor is Kerr hard on the eyes when she is done up as a "pin up girl," as Robert Wilson discovers to his very great surprise - and our amusement - when, after having told her in the almost dark that he wants to divorce her, they move into a pub and he gets his first glimpse of her in real light. That's one of the best scenes in the movie.

The final scenes, from there to the end, run on too long, even though they are the most important in the movie, indeed the movie's very reason for being made. The last scene, when the Wilsons talk about rebuilding blitz-bombed London as they look at it from the height of their flat window, feels as if it could have been accompanied by a chorus singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" or "They'll be forever an England" or something like that. But there was morale to be kept up, and that was important.

So if you like either of the leads, treat yourself to this with the understanding that it's not a great movie, but it has several fine performances in a movie that had to be made, and had to end as it did, because there were things more important than making great movies at stake in 1945.

Not great, but not bad

[gbill-74877 · 6/10 · 2 October 2020]

A film that I imagine struck a lot of chords with the audience in 1945. Alexander Korda efficiently marches us through the various phases for this couple: boring married life, saying goodbye at the outset of war, being newbies in their respective outfits (him: the navy, her: the wrens), facing grave danger bravely (both of them), growing as people, meeting someone new, and then reuniting three years later, each doubting why they were married in the first place and contemplating divorce. Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr are fine as the couple, and Glynis Johns adds a little spice as a savvy friend, but somewhere along the way it seemed just a little too linear and predictable, which strained my interest. I liked the arc of Kerr's character, who seems so brow-beaten at the beginning, not doing things like smoking because her husband doesn't want her to, which is something Johns mocks in the best little moment of the film. The film opts for sentimentality rather than carry this through to a more interesting conclusion though, something that I suppose was to be expected right after the war. Maybe if Donat and Kerr had a little more spark it would have been more compelling. It's not awful though.

Concept more interesting than the outcome

[vincentlynch-moonoi · 6/10 · 3 December 2017]

I do give this film some points for being a bit different. It's an interesting premise: a man and a wife -- mousy characters both before WWII -- end up serving their country during the way and come out very different people. They both look back on their own lives and see how drab they were, and both decide they want to move forward with their more sophisticated post-war lives. And so they plan to divorce, only to finally realize that they have both changed so drastically that they are still made for each other...just in different ways than before the war.

Unfortunately, this film dates to the 1940s when British films were a poor second to American films in terms of technical quality, and so this whole film just seems plain drab. The best example, although some may say a minor point, the dirigibles floating over London during the war are so faked-painted looking that it's laughable.

Robert Donat was quite a good actor, and Deborah Kerr became one of the greats of Hollywood. They both evolve nicely as this film progresses. But, then there's best friend Glynis Johns, whose popularity I never understood.

I also think that too much time is spent on the war portion of the film. It was needed to show why each of them evolved so much, but they spent so much time on this that they short-changed the portion of the film where they meet and discover they want change, not realizing at first that they have changed. And that latter part is what's really important in the film.

Ah well. It coulda been very good, but turns out being only passably interesting. You may wanna exercise the fast-forward button on your remote.

Not before victory

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 13 August 2012]

One of the differences between the World War II experiences of the United Kingdom and America was that our war was thousands of miles away and their's was right at home. As a result our cinema produced a lot of comedies as well as drama in films about the war. In the UK the war was no subject for humor before final victory.

When victory did come Alexander Korda produced and directed a delightful comedy that starred Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr about a married couple who have to adjust themselves to the fact that war has made them different people.

Donat had a ship shot out from under him and survived. During his hospital convalescence temptation hits him big time in the person of nurse Ann Todd. In fact he did a bit of succumbing and who wouldn't. Ann Todd who is probably best known for American audiences as Gregory Peck's wife in The Paradine Case was one of the most strikingly beautiful women who ever was on the big screen. She was an exquisite porcelain blond goddess as you'll see here.

As for Kerr she joins the WRENS the British equivalent of the WAVES to do her wartime service in a country that was united and determined to withstand a foreign invader. She's a doormat of a housewife, but with roommate and friend Glynis Johns, Kerr develops a nice self assurance.

At the end of the war when they reunite Donat and Kerr are not sure they're suitable for each other. That has to all be worked out if it can.

Vacation From Marriage was at a turning point in the career of Deborah Kerr. This film was produced by MGM as well as Korda and Kerr would shortly be off to Hollywood and an MGM contract. This film was preview of what American audiences would enjoy for the next twenty years.

As for Donat most movie fans know he suffered his whole life from crippling asthma. Yet he still carries off his military scenes well even though he could never not project a certain frailty in any role he ever undertook. And he was never bad in any film role.

Vacation From Marriage got an Oscar nomination for original screenplay. The story is good and the characters are people the writer, director, and players make you care about. See this one when it's broadcast.

Lovely hidden British treasure

[jem132 · 9/10 · 19 June 2008]

A lovely little film that no one seems to know about. I didn't either, and I'm a huge British classic film buff! Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat give thoughtful, engaging performances as the British couple who's marriage is going stale in a cramped London flat. Then Donat is called up to service and Kerr becomes a WREN in WW2, and the couple change their outlook on life enormously, and separately. They begin to question whether or not they want to be together, and feel like "perfect strangers" when they meet up on Donat's 10 day leave. An incredibly honest film about marriage and change, this features lovely work from the leads (I don't think Kerr and Donat have ever been so gorgeous as in their later scenes together), and great supporting work from the likes of an incredibly modern Glynis Johns and a beautiful Ann Todd. See it

Strangers In Paradise

[writers_reign · 8/10 · 13 September 2010]

There is, I feel, scholarly research required as to why so many British films of this vintage are so risible, why some - In Which We Serve, The Way To The Stars, Brief Encounter, The Fallen Idol, The Browning Version - are magnificent and a handful of others like Perfect Strangers are eight-out-of-tens in anyone's book. In the last couple of years I've watched some real dogs, Carol Reed in particular has a bad track record via Climbing High and Night Train To Munich, and never having even heard of Perfect Strangers I was prepared for the worst especially since it is being screened as part of a Deborah Kerr season at the National Film Theatre in London and I have never seen the point of Deborah Kerr despite the fact that she has appeared in some excellent films. I thoroughly enjoyed the film and I don't care who knows it. Although it centres on two adults, probably meant to be in the late twenties it is, in one respect, a bildungsroman, because during the running time these two mature, much-married people do come of age albeit it took something as traumatic as a world war to effect the transition from dull to vibrant. The original director, American Wesley Ruggles departed early by mutual agreement and was replaced by Sandy Korda who despite having his directorial name attached to some iconic titles was at best a journeyman, light years short of Puffin Asquith for example, yet here he turns in what is arguably his finest directing. Neither of the two leads test high on my list of favourite actors but I must confess that I could fault neither of them albeit the best performance by a country mile was that of Glynis Johns, ironically someone else I can take or leave. Roland Culver, alas, just doesn't do 'romantic lover', fine actor though he is and in 2010 the metaphoric element - in the aftermath of war things like cities and marriages need rebuilding in equal measure - is a tad twee it must have pushed all the right buttons in 1945. Should it appear on DVD I would have no hesitation in bagging a copy.

Benign **

[edwagreen · 4/10 · 14 November 2014]

Rather dull affair with married couple Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat on their way to quite an abysmal marriage only to have World War 11 interrupt,and separated by service for 3 years, they meet on leave and find out that they have matured from the war years. The maturity is not shown; suddenly, they're totally different people. The film, of supposed comic blend, then briefly shows how they get back to one another.

Glynnis Johns is wasted here as Kerr's colleague. 15 years later the two would receive Oscar nominations for their work in The Sundowners.

The film in question needed much more action and certainly a better script for the actors to work properly.

Gets better with each viewing

[ViewInSepia · 8/10 · 10 May 2013]

We saw this movie years ago on AMC and taped it. Fortunately, it is now available on DVD. The US version is shorter by 9 minutes, and I keep wondering what I have missed. It would be nice if the "Perfect Strangers" full version could be had.

I won't repeat any of the plot here, but I will mention a few scenes and details that might be missed. First off, the attention to detail is fabulous. The funky London smokestacks, the military uniforms, the barrage balloons, even the casting-off drill on the WREN's launch. Robert's love interest Elena is of course a member of Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service, in a spot-on white dress uniform.

As some other reviewers have pointed out, the ending is not as good as it could have been. The argument in the street is rather contrived, and I always wonder what happened to Chief Petty Officer McAllister - he just sort of wanders off at 3 or 4 in the morning, with no obvious place to go. This scene needed to be redone!

But far and away the best scene in the movie is when Robert and Cathy finally set eyes on one another in the pub. In particular, Cathy stares and stares at Robert, seemingly forever, not believing her eyes. I don't know how Deborah Kerr managed this, but Cathy somehow looked Robert up and down, without changing the position of her eyes. It is awesome!

Two ugly ducklings.

[dbdumonteil · 6 July 2008]

Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr playing together .Nuff said.Even if the movie were abysmal ,it would be worth a look.

But abysmal it is not;it's good,nay splendid.At the beginning of the movie ,none of the principals is attractive: Robert looks like an old maid (his wife dixit) ,his nine-to-five world in an office made his life a humdrum life.Catherine never makes up (when Glynis Johns advises her to put lipsticks ,whe is confused: "my husband would not like me to");when Robert shows her photograph to his military pals,they are polite when they say she is discreet,reserved.

Both join the navy ,and WW2 turns two ugly ducklings into two beautiful swans :Robert looks great in his uniform and Catherine has learned to show herself off to advantage.But they find strangers in their place.

London has to be rebuilt and they have to rebuild their life.

Recommended

Almost Perfect

[legadillo · 8/10 · 21 January 2005]

The first two thirds of this movie are perfect! The remaking of Robert and Catherine is depicted in the subtle way I wanted it done. And the mirroring of their war experiences worked very well. At the same points in the movie they were made over, they were heroes, they were attracted to other people. It was utterly predictable, but surprise wasn't the point. The point was to tease out their reunion into a deliciously excruciating wait, and that worked. I was right there for it the whole time—and then they botched the ending. Instead of taking pains with the nuances of the couple's becoming interested in each other again—which could have been achingly romantic—we get a short cut: a dumb marital squabble that is out of character with their new war-forged maturity. Ah well. It was really close.