Wordiezett So much average

Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

writers_reign When Sam Goldwyn can with great conviction Instruct Anna Sten in diction Then Anna shows Anything Goes.That was of course just a small section of Cole Porter's celebrity-studded lyric for the title song of his 1934 Broadway show and up to today it was one of the very few things I knew about Sten, mostly variations on the theme that Sam Goldwyn 'discovered' her in Europe, brought her to Hollywood and lost a young fortune attempting to make her a star. The overriding impression was that she was beautiful but had the acting talent of an amoeba with learning difficulties. Now that I have seen her at last in a film produced around the time Goldwyn was actively promoting her I realise how wrong it was to believe the misinformation of the day. The fact is she was a fine actress and clearly Porter was exaggerating her speech problems to serve his lyric; as it happens she possessed a fine speaking voice and had no problem with English. If anyone is miscast here it is Ralph Bellamy who is about as convincing as a Polish farmer as Percy Kilbride would be as a Boston Brahmin. The plot has Manhattan sophisticate Gary Cooper moving into his family home in Connecticut and falling for the Polish girl (Sten) on the farm next door. If anything Sten turns in the best performance in a film that boasts, in addition to Cooper, Helen Vinson, Sig Ruman, and Walter Brennan. On the strength of this performance I intend to seek out other movies featuring Sten.

edwagreen When people talk of a film being dated, "The Wedding Night" is a perfect example of this.Anna Sten looks at you from the screen with those sad eyes. You know you're in for a tear-jerker. By the title, I thought I was in for a comedy. Comedy? That's a laugh in itself.Instead, the viewer is subjected to a tragic film on par with Anna Karenina. The only thing is that we only have to be subjected to an hour and twenty four minutes of this soap opera junk.There are two good performances here. Sten, since she so vulnerable and Sig Ruman, who portrays her strict by the book father. Yes, this is old fashioned about a girl spending a night with a man, a married man, but after all, the film was made in 1935.Gary Cooper plays an author in this film who is obviously suffering from writer's block. That all changes when he meets, by chance, a young Polish girl, Miss Sten, who inspires him to write a novel. The problem is that Cooper is married and that Sten is engaged to a blustering Ralph Bellamy.The tragedy at the end of this film will make you shed a tear for about a minute. Why? You'll be so glad that this film is over.

andreaandy Tony is a writer and can't get his latest book published in NYC so he and his wife go to a farmhouse he inherited in Connecticut where it'll be cheaper to live. While in Connecticut, he meets his Polish neighbors and their daughter, Manja. While Tony's wife is away and his cook has left him in the dead of winter, Manja helps Tony around the house and provides inspiration for his latest book. An attraction grows stronger, but Manja's hand in marriage is promised to a local farmer. Can two people promised to others and from very different worlds be happy? How will the book end? Film focuses strongly on Tony and Manja, but could have rounded out the wife's character a bit more - overall an enjoyable film but the ending's a bit melodramatic as most were for the time.

David (Handlinghandel) OK, you want to make Anna Sten a star like Garbo or Deitrich. What are the very worst things you could do? Cast her as a Polish immigrant farm woman. Dress her in frumpy clothes. Set the movie in cold weather, necessitating her wearing a hat or scarf much of the time. Cast the urbane Ralph Bellamy as her rough-hewn Polish fiancé.Anna Sten had a lovely face and she wasn't a bad actress. But this vehicle could have sunk any unknown. On the other hand, it's not a bad movie. In some ways, it's memorable.The male lead is Gary Cooper, in his early days when his lashes were long, his look lanky but gentle. He's very good as a writer who's hit a brick wall with his work. He and wife Helen Vinson are splitsville, or near it; so he goes to his family house in Connecticut. And there he meets Sten, who is delivering milk. (No comment.) I never got the whole big deal about Garbo. Sten is more emotive. But she's sunk in this movie.