1932 Directed by Dorothy Arzner
A drunken newspaperman, Jerry Corbett, is rescued from his alcoholic haze by an heiress, Joan Prentice, whose love sobers him up and encourages him to write a play, but he lapses back into dipsomania.
Sylvia Sidney Fredric March Adrianne Allen Richard 'Skeets' Gallagher George Irving Esther Howard Florence Britton Charles Coleman Cary Grant Kent Taylor Robert Greig Ernie Adams Mildred Boyd Edna Callahan Leonard Carey Harry Cording Milla Davenport Neal Dodd Jay Eaton Bill Elliott Mary Halsey Theresa Harris Amo Ingraham LeRoy Mason Edwin Maxwell Edmund Mortimer William H. O'Brien Dennis O'Keefe Tom Ricketts Show All…
Щастливи отиваме в Ада, Tuya para siempre, 우리는 즐겁게 지옥에 간다, 寒涛俪影, Quando a Mulher Se Opõe, Alegrement anem a l'infern, Andiamo all'inferno allegramente
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”gentlemen, i give you the holy state of matrimony, modern style: single lives, twin beds, and triple bromides in the morning.”
imagine your wife telling you she’s bringing her side piece to a party and she shows up with CARY GRANT. i would just cut my losses at that point honestly.
Love the experience of going into something like this completely blind and thinking I'm watching a plain good classic romantic comedy/melodrama, and then having an extremely dark detail about alcoholism pop up, then another about adultery, and then a completely sudden and harrowing ending and going "ah, right, pre-code."
LOVE. If there were ever a better image than a windswept, teary Sylvia Sidney driving alone at night, I haven't seen it. What a perfect performance.
or: Bittersweet-8100
Few better feelings one can get in a movie theater than that moment when you realize an old pre-code melodrama has you totally hooked and engaged with its story and characters. For me it happened during the wedding scene in this, when Frederic March starts patting around his pockets looking for Sylvia Sidney's wedding ring. I suspect most of the credit for this working as well as it does belongs to Sidney, who is just absolutely heartbreaking as a woman too good for the man she loves - but it never condescends to say she SHOULDN'T love him, which is a sentiment that for me has always been as useless in movies as it tends to be in…
If you're going to talk about Dorothy Arzner, one also mustn't ignore the ways in which she became a pioneer for queer filmmaking from the day, especially considering the way she codes such subtext within her work. Merrily We Go to Hell also might just be the most fitting title for a film of this sort, especially when it starts off like any other romantic comedy would before turning into a much darker film as it goes on. But there's a lot to admire about how Dorothy Arzner breaks down gender conventions as they lead into heightened melodrama, though all of it still works beautifully for what it is.
I think I just need more of her films in my life right now.
i keep reading the title of this movie to the tune of “merrily we roll along” and thinking about how cary grant is always trying to destroy a marriage
Joan Prentice: Gentlemen, I give you the holy state of matrimony, modern style: single lives, twin beds and triple bromides in the morning.
Very much in the same vein as Days of Wine and Roses and The Lost Weekend, Merrily We Go To Hell is the close look at the effects of alcoholism and the major strain it applies to marriage. Dorothy Arzner throws some innovative ideas against the wall for 1932. The film holds itself up well for today’s standards and will surprise most people at its reflective commentary toward society with an all-too uncommon ending based in the snug cradle of reality.
Fredric March’s aloof and dependent Jerry Corbett suffers from a mixture of poor decision making and…
One of the most confidently directed films, shot for shot, I’ve seen from this era.
A pre-code gift from Dorothy Arzner, whose life is most often summarized in a series of whimsical anecdotes about her role as a pioneer. Like how she directed Paramount’s first ever talkie. Or how, when Clara Bow nervously fumbled her lines while trying to adjust to the cumbersome microphone, Arzner had her sound recordist fetch a fishing pole, whipping together the first ever boom mic. It's noted that she brought Frederick March over from the stage, giving him his film break, and years later as a teacher she encouraged her sullen student, Francis Ford Coppola, not to abandon film. There are essays on JSTOR dedicated…
“He’s no gentleman and he’s no baritone.”
Sylvia Sidney’s little moon face. Sylvia Sidney running down the stairs to kiss daddy on the cheek. Sylvia Sidney driving and crying in the rain. 👍
Sylvia Sidney infuriatingly standing by her man. 👎
Until she sorta doesn’t. She kicks Fredric March’s cheating, drunken playwright out of the house (man can’t even carry a roast chicken without dropping it on the floor, a complete fuckup) and starts running around with Cary Grant (making the most of a bit part) to make him jealous. But then she gets pregnant, and there’s some serious tonal whiplash in the final 20 minutes. There’s a dead (maybe illegitimate?) baby, a dying, pleading wife, and a wastrel husband welcomed back with open arms. I thought this was supposed to be a comedy!
