Vacation from Marriage

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!

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.

"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.

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.

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.