cgvsluis Review of Dodsworth

Dodsworth (1936)

Phenomenal Acting and great direction...you will fall in love and maybe hate.

[7/10 · 11 October 2020]

"Would you lay off those European liberties with my wife!"-my favorite quote from Dodsworth! It made me laugh out loud. It was said in a rather melancholy moment when Sam is just realizing what kind of woman he is married to and his best friend's wife (who probably has always known) gives him an innocent and sympathetic kiss on the cheek. It was a wonderful tool used to cut the tension of the moment with just a little bit of humor. I will be using some variation of that quote in the future...it has lasting charm. Walter Huston gave a phenomenal performance in Dodsworth, he made a multi-millionaire automotive tycoon into a loveable everyman that we could relate to and sympathize with. Trust me, by the end of the film if he would have ended up with his wife I would feel a heck of a lot different about this story as a whole and that is all thanks to Walter Huston's portrayal Of Sam Dodsworth. The story starts with Sam Dodsworth retiring via selling his automotive manufacturing business to Union Motors. He gives up this very successful twenty year career, not by choice...but through a lot of persuasion (and probably nagging) from his younger wife after their one and only daughter gets married. Fran Dodsworth, the wife, is fighting off old age tooth and nail and has envisioned them galavanting in high society in Europe staying "forever young". The day he says goodbye to his thriving business where he was happy, they board a ship for a European voyage. No sooner are they on the ship than his wife takes up with some shipboard lothario played by a young David Niven. When he gets a little too honest about their affair, which they have been conducting right under her husband's nose, she rebuffs him and acts offended. The thing is while she is busy conducting her affair, drinking and dancing...Sam, as he promised his wife to try, has thrown himself with the kind of vigor he had previously only shown for work, into the sights and learning new things on their voyage. It is in one of those discovering moments (the first sight of land as signaled by a light in England), after enthusiastically trying to rally his wife to find some interest...that he meets Mrs. Cortright, played by Mary Astor. Cortright is a very different woman than his wife. She is mature, self-confident, world-traveled, and able to live independently. The have a brief but innocent exchange, that sets you up to understand how much better Sam's life could have been had he chosen the right wife in the beginning. Once in Europe it becomes painfully obvious that Sam and Fran are ill suited for one another. This culminates in a shouting match in a hotel room, in which Fran asks Sam to go home after she informs him that she has rented a villa. Sam does go home, but realizes that he misses his domestic life with his wife. At this point he hires a PI, to confirm her affair with some penniless bloke. He arrives in Europe, calls them both out...Fran begs forgiveness (shows fake chagrin) and the plan is to finish their European vacation together. It is not long before she is taking up with a baron, a handsome young Viennese friend of Sam's. Sam finally decides that enough is enough and they agree to divorce so that she can marry the young baron. Upon her begging, Sam stays in Europe until the divorce is final and he decides to continue to travel and see it all. He takes every tour, sees every sight...and it is in the midst of doing so that he runs in to our lovely self-possessed Mrs. Cortright again. She somehow convinces him to come stay with her in her little abode in Naples, where Sam finally starts to enjoy life again. He fixes boat motors, fishes, cooks, talks and dreams...including getting inspired to go in to business with the Russians on a transcontinental airline between Russian and my home town, Seattle! Then he explains to her how she is going too and how they are going to live out of one suitcase! It is in just that moment that Edith Cortright's dreams are plummeted because Sam's wife,Fran, is calling. Things have fallen apart with the Baron (In a lovely scene with his mother the Baroness, where she brings up the obvious fact that she is too old to give the Baron children. I loved it! It was just the comeuppance that the vain chit deserved.) and she wants Sam back. Sam apologizes to Edith saying it's his duty and like a puppy with his tail between his legs goes back to Fran where he meets her to board a ship back to the US. No sooner do they get on board the ship but Fran starts complaining and then not only does she not accept responsibility for what she has done...buts starts blaming Sam!!!!! Sam gets up and at the last minute walks off the board to have that life with Edith! Thank goodness too! If he had stayed with his wife Fran, I would not have been able to control myself...I would have been so angry! And like I said that was due to the phenomenal acting by Walter Huston. Great acting by a wonderful cast. Go see it!