What on earth did the people who concocted this horror (Dorothy Parker among them) think they were doing? Cary Grant and Jean Harlow, two of the most likable of all movie stars, do everything they can to make themselves, respectively, unpleasant or boring. Grant overdoes his usual endearingly boisterous persona so much that you want to tell him to calm down and shut up, and his character is a heel who is cruel to his wife. Harlow is sweet, earnest, sincere, taking good care of an old man while she hides her pain and endures sacrifice for the good of the country. Who wants that? Give us the brassy dame who chewed out men twice her size and slugged snooty debutantes.
The script is full of situations that are as tiresome as they are cliched, and the women of World War I wearing fashions that would not appear until 20 years later (the date of the movie) is ridiculous and condescending. Did the movie-makers think that patrons would walk out if they couldn't see Harlow's calves? Every aspect of the ending is as ludicrous as it is disgusting--we are asked to cheer as a woman is burnt alive and to feel uplifted when a speaker says that courage gives war its "purity."
I am giving the movie four points for the song, which is very nice, and which Cary Grant sings in a very cute way. But when you've seen that, abandon ship.
The script is full of situations that are as tiresome as they are cliched, and the women of World War I wearing fashions that would not appear until 20 years later (the date of the movie) is ridiculous and condescending. Did the movie-makers think that patrons would walk out if they couldn't see Harlow's calves? Every aspect of the ending is as ludicrous as it is disgusting--we are asked to cheer as a woman is burnt alive and to feel uplifted when a speaker says that courage gives war its "purity."
I am giving the movie four points for the song, which is very nice, and which Cary Grant sings in a very cute way. But when you've seen that, abandon ship.