I liked parts of this movie a lot.
But when the ship hits an iceberg near the end and suddenly we are redoing one of the many Titanic movies, I found myself saying: "Did someone change the channel on me without telling me?" I don't expect movies to fit into neat little genre boxes, and I don't want to know what's going to happen an hour before it happens, but when the genre is changed, radically, with no preparation, there is a problem, at least for me. I very much felt that I was being played with by a director who couldn't figure out what to do with what becomes an ever more cumbersome situation. The ship hitting the iceberg was NOT a seamless, convincing way to handle that, despite what some others on here have said.
And Colin Clive seems to be in a different movie from the beginning. His acting style just does not integrate with that of the other actors. We keep going back and forth between a 1930s romantic comedy with Arthur and Boyer and a 1920s melodrama with Arthur and Clive.
Yes, the scenes between Jean Arthur and Charles Boyer are very romantic in a general sense. There is a lot of good chemistry between the two of them.
But the script is so weak, and could have been so much better.
For example: early on in the movie, when Boyer, pretending to be a burglar, kidnaps Arthur to save her from a compromising situation set up by her husband, Arthur's character shows little or no surprise, much less fear, fear that would have been normal in such a situation. If she had expressed such fear, the subsequent scene in the cab, when Boyer explains he is not really a burglar but just wanted to save her from a compromising set up, could have been much more interesting. Arthur's character could have been a lot more interesting if the script writers had just given her something decent to work with.
I really can't recommend this movie. There are nice scenes, but the framework just doesn't hold up.
But when the ship hits an iceberg near the end and suddenly we are redoing one of the many Titanic movies, I found myself saying: "Did someone change the channel on me without telling me?" I don't expect movies to fit into neat little genre boxes, and I don't want to know what's going to happen an hour before it happens, but when the genre is changed, radically, with no preparation, there is a problem, at least for me. I very much felt that I was being played with by a director who couldn't figure out what to do with what becomes an ever more cumbersome situation. The ship hitting the iceberg was NOT a seamless, convincing way to handle that, despite what some others on here have said.
And Colin Clive seems to be in a different movie from the beginning. His acting style just does not integrate with that of the other actors. We keep going back and forth between a 1930s romantic comedy with Arthur and Boyer and a 1920s melodrama with Arthur and Clive.
Yes, the scenes between Jean Arthur and Charles Boyer are very romantic in a general sense. There is a lot of good chemistry between the two of them.
But the script is so weak, and could have been so much better.
For example: early on in the movie, when Boyer, pretending to be a burglar, kidnaps Arthur to save her from a compromising situation set up by her husband, Arthur's character shows little or no surprise, much less fear, fear that would have been normal in such a situation. If she had expressed such fear, the subsequent scene in the cab, when Boyer explains he is not really a burglar but just wanted to save her from a compromising set up, could have been much more interesting. Arthur's character could have been a lot more interesting if the script writers had just given her something decent to work with.
I really can't recommend this movie. There are nice scenes, but the framework just doesn't hold up.