MERRILY WE GO TO HELL
US, 1932, 78 minutes, Black and white.
Sylvia Sidney, Fredric March, Adrianne Allen, Richard Skeats Gallagher, George Irving, Esther Howard, Cary Grant, Kent Taylor.
Directed by Dorothy Arzner.
Merrily We Go to Hell is very much a film of the early 1930s, before the imposition of the standards of the Motion Picture Code. It was directed by Dorothy Arzner, the only woman director of the period.
While the film does have a moral foundation, especially the reconciliation at the end, it actually portrays a rather more permissive society, a wealthy society who, at one stage, wonder about the reality of the Depression.
Fredric March, just before his Oscar-winning Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, is a journalist with a drinking problem, seen initially drunk, flirting with the young socialite, Joan Prentice, played with charm by Sylvia Sidney. Jerry is unreliable but Joan is attracted, able to forgive him, defying her father to marry him, humiliated when he is too drunk to attend the engagement party, but still going ahead with the marriage and even laughing at the mixup when Jerry loses the ring and substitutes a bottle opener during the ceremony.
Jerry wants to be a playwright and for the first part of the marriage, they live quietly and ordinarily, Joan becoming domestic, while he writes a play. There are a number of rejections and he begins to give up hope only to find the play accepted, the star to be Claire, Adrianne Allen, with whom he had had a relationship with her terminating it. The play is a success, Claire flirts, and tempts Jerry to drink again after his being off the drink while writing the play. He takes a curtain call drunk, stays out with Claire, wants to go out again after she phones him and challenges Joan to lock the door but she decides that she does not want to be a jailer.
In the aftermath, with some words about freedom of attitudes different from the past, the touch of open marriage, Joan tires of the high life, even dating the actor, an early role for Cary Grant. She is pregnant, Jerry not having the time to listen to her but, at the end, his going to her bedside in the hospital, despite her father's refusal, and there is a possibility of a future.
1. A film about love, marriage, infidelity, open lifestyle, alcoholism?
2. A film of 1932, pre-Code? A more permissive approach to contemporary lifestyle and later?
3. Black-and-white photography, the city settings, socials, mansions and affluence, the theatre? The musical score?
4. The title and Jerry quoting it freely, and Joan quoting it?
5. The work of Dorothy Arzner, one of the lone female directors of the period?
6. The initial party, Jerry and his flicking, the encounter with Joan, their getting on well, his being drunk, the kiss, her response? Her inviting him to the party, his accepting, telephone number? His not being able to focus on her as she left?
7. The party, her father's disapproval, his background in industry, wealth, the luxury mansion, the servants? Preparation for the party, cake, gingerbread and creme de menthe? Jerry not arriving? Coming late, the encounter with Mr Prentice? Going out with Joan?
8. Jerry, his work, reputation as a columnist, his wanting to write plays? Courting Joan? Saying she was swell? Not saying he loved her? Summoned by her father, his attempt to buy Jerry of, Joan overhearing? Rivals and their articles?
9. The engagement party, Jerry drunk? Buck and his friendship with Jerry, supporting him, trying to help him? Vi and her friendship with Joan?
10. The wedding ceremony, Jerry losing the ring, the substitute, Joan laughing? The time together, at home, the ordinary life, Buck and Vi visiting? Jerry writing the play, the series of rejections, the final acceptance, celebration, dropping the chicken on the floor?
11. The reading, Claire and the past relationship with Jerry, her wanting changes to her advantage? Joan watching? The rehearsals? The night of the opening? Claire and flirting? Jerry and his drinking, the performance, the applause, Joan finding him, his being dragged on stage?
12. Jerry, late home, drunk, Joan upset, her father's warnings? Jerry going out to see Claire, asking Joan to lock the door, opening it?
13. The collapse of the marriage? Joan and her reaction, drinking, showing Jerry what it was like to be drunk? Her comments about marriage, her grandmother's standards, the change of lifestyle and mores in the 1930s? Her going on the town, dating Charlie Baxter from the drama, going to socials, encountering Jerry? With Claire? The social life and its permissiveness?
14. Joan, tiring of the high life, discovering she was pregnant? Jerry too busy to listen to her, her leaving?
15. Jerry going back to work, the newspaper article about the birth of the child? The death of the child? His hurrying to the hospital, Mr Prentice refusing him permission to see Joan, Joan asking her father for him, his defiance, going in, a reconciliation? The possibility for a happy future and his not drinking?
