UNHOLY LOVE

US, 1932, 75 minutes, Black and white.
H.B.Warner, Lila Lee, Beryl Mercer, Joyce Compton, Lysle Talbot, Ivan Lebedeff, Jason Robards Sr, Kathlyn Williams.
Directed by Albert Ray.

At first look, Unholy Love would seem much the same as many of the small budget films of this year, 1932, just prior to the implementation of the Motion Picture Code in 1934.

It is a story about a rash marriage in Rye, New York State, a young doctor infatuated with the daughter of one of his patients (Lysle Talbot and Joyce Compton). The doctor is mentored by his father-doctor, H. B. Warner (Jesus in De Mille’s King of Kings). The marriage does not work and it is revealed how self-centred the young woman is, easily bored, easily distracted, playing tennis with attractive young men, encountering a novelist and beginning a relationship with him, prepared to leave her husband.

In the meantime, the young woman (Lila Lee) who is in love with the young doctor is gracious in her manner, is kind to the wife, despite the acerbic comments from her mother.

But, if one looks at the credits, one sees that this is an adaptation of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. The main elements are there, the young provincial doctor and his love for his wife but unawareness of her responses, the self-centred Madame Bovary (who is in no way sympathetic for the audience).

The performances are as expected, H. B. Warner bringing some dignity to his role, even to his kindness in taking his daughter-in-law to a social function, seeing her make mistakes, threatening her to protect his son.

And the Madame Bovary character despairs in a contemporary way, driving away in her car and crashing to her death from a bridge.

A curiosity item from the period – as well as an interpretation of Flaubert.