Kept Husbands

Film in Focus

By Ed Garea

Kept Husbands (RKO, 1931) – Director: Lloyd Bacon. Writers: Louis Sarecky (story). Forrest Halsey & Alfred Jackson (adaptation). Stars: Dorothy Mackaill, Joel McCrea, Ned Sparks, Mary Carr, Clara Kimball Young, Robert McWade, Bryant Washburn, Florence Roberts & Freeman Wood. B&W, 76 minutes.

The title is intriguing, and the cast promises much in the way of merriment, but this 1931 romantic comedy is a far cry from other Pre-Code movies of its time.

The film plays more like a lesson in mores than a cheeky comedy, and in many ways it takes a highly conventional of gender roles in the household, asserting that men and women should fulfill their proper duties. In the Depression years, because rich heiresses did not make for appealing heroines for the impoverished audiences, conventions of the time demanded that haughty heiresses be firmly put in their place by the movie’s end. 

Arthur Parker (McWade), New Jersey steel mill owner, informs his wife and daughter that he has invited mill worker Richard “Dick” Brunton (McCrea) to dinner. Brunton has saved the lives of three other mill workers and Parker wishes to reward his heroism. His snobbish wife, Henrietta (Roberts), is aghast. Not only are the hoi polloi not invited for dinner, but she has opera tickets for the night. On the other hand, Parker’s daughter, Dorothy (Mackaill), thinks it could be a hoot. She envisions Brunton as someone who drags his knuckles as he walks and eats peas with his knife. She even invites her boyfriend, Charlie Bates (Washburn), to witness the festivities. 

When Brunton arrives he nothing as expected. Not only isn’t he a knuckle dragger, he even looks like Joel McCrea. Parker offers Dick a $1,000 check as a reward for his act of heroism, but Dick turns it down. However, he will stay for dinner. 

As dinner progresses Dot begins staring at Dick in a sort of wonder. A gold football charm on his watch chain catches her eye and she realizes where she’s seen him before. He’s the Dick Brunton, the all-American halfback from Yale. Dot tries to draw out Dick about his football playing days, but he doesn’t want to discuss the topic because he doesn’t want to trade on his athletic fame to get ahead. On the contrary, he believes in hard work to get ahead.  

After Dick departs, Dot, besotted, bets Dad that Dick will propose to her in four weeks. Dad is skeptical, but indulges her. Dick, for his part, tells his mother (Carr) that Dot was lovely, but “just plain spoiled.” He cannot see her as his wife.

An intertitle tells us that the four weeks have passed and we see Dot taking Dick to lunch at a swanky club, even though his intention was to work through lunch in order to complete an important project. His discomfort is obvious when she goes to pay the bill, but she tells him that he’s not a member and so can’t pay, and also lets him know that she is loaded while he is not. 

Having reached the deadline on her bet Dot comes right out and proposes to Dick, who refuses on the grounds he has nothing to offer a girl like her. He tells her that she wouldn’t be happy living on his salary. But Dot won’t take “no” for an answer; she wears him down to the point where when she proposes again, he accepts. After all, she’s a dead ringer for Dorothy Mackaill.    

With that done, Dot tells her parents about her engagement. Her mother is horrified; she can’t believe her daughter is marrying a common steel worker. Dad, however, is happy. He knows that Dick is a good man and hopes that he will make Dot a better woman in the bargain. Dot immediately goes on the attack, asking Dad to promote Dick, along with a nice increase in salary. Though he initially balks at her demand, he acquiesces, promoting Dick to third vice-president. But his $50,000 salary (something along the lines of about $1 million today) will have to be paid through Dad’s private funds lest he wreck the company’s wage structure.      

When it comes time for the honeymoon, which has been booked for Europe, Dad offers Dick a check for spending money before they sail, but Dick refuses it. After Dad plays the guilt card (Doesn’t he want his wife to be happy?), Dick gives in and accepts the check, though he admits he’s still uneasy about taking money he didn’t earn.

The honeymoon is one long period of discomfort for Dick, with Dot on a spending spree and Dick missing work and wanting to return home. Dot becomes upset when Dick refuses to once again wire Dad for more money and puts the kibosh on their further itinerary, telling her they’re going home. However, a river of fake tears from Dot convinces Dick otherwise.

When they finally return home, Dick is shocked to discover that Dot has bought a lavish house. Although Dick resists the move, wanting a small apartment he can afford on his salary, Dot insists they stay and celebrates with a loud housewarming party.

The movie now settles into a repeating pattern: Dot overspends. Dick gets mad and chastises her. Dot turns on the water works, Dick begs for forgiveness. Even after he catches her canoodling with old flame Charlie, Dick is powerless. She insists it was nothing and actually makes him feel guilty for suspecting she was disloyal.

The movie moves along six months and we find that Dick is no longer designing and working on bridges. The only bridge he’s working on is his bridge hand and the only calls he gets are from Dot demanding his presence at a host of receptions and parties. 

Just just as all looks lost, Dad assigns Dick to a new bridge project in St. Louis. Thrilled, Dick gets to work immediately, informing Dot that evening of his assignment and assuming that not only will she also be just as thrilled as he, but will also accompany him to St. Louis.

But Dick is barking up the wrong Dot. Not only is she not going, she tells him he’s not going, either. For Dick, this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. He packs up and leaves. She paces in the bedroom, thinking it over. Then she decides to get dressed and head out on the town.

Dick stops at his mother’s to say goodbye. Ma tells him to call Dot and straighten things out. She’s sure that Dot didn’t mean anything she said, and now that she knows how much it means to Dick, she will accompany him to St. Louis. To say Ma is naive is an understatement. Dick calls his wife but there’s no answer because she’s out with old flame Charlie.

At Charlie’s apartment, Dot has a few drinks with him and watches as he locks the front door. The film then cuts to Dick as he frantically calls around town looking for his wife.

It’s now 2 a.m. Charlie has been chasing Dot around the apartment, but no dice, Dot isn’t in the mood for fun and games. She returns home, drunk and disheveled, and runs straight into Dick, who gives her the once over and demands a divorce. He’s tired, he says, of being a kept husband and of having to put up with her friends, who he describes as a “rotten bunch of pasty-faced loose-lipped wasters.”

The next morning, Dad stops by Dot’s house to show her Dick’s letter of resignation from the firm. Dad’s fit to be tied. And finally, Dot realizes she’s made a big mistake. Not in marrying Dick, but in acting the way she has. 

Dot goes to see Dick’s mother, who tells her that all husbands are “kept,” if not by the wife’s money, then by the wife’s love, sacrifice, loyalty, etc. Every wife has something she uses to keep her husband home, but Dot has been using the wrong something.     

Meanwhile, Dad convinces Dick to postpone his resignation until after the St. Louis bridge project is finished. Off Dick goes, on his way to St. Louis. But when he boards the train he finds Dot waiting for him in his compartment. She apologizes, begging him to start over fresh. And from now on, she tells him, they will live on his salary. Overwhelmed, Dick tells Dot how much the loves her and the movie ends with a clinch.

Afterwords

Kept Husbands isn’t so much of a battle between the sexes as it is a class war. The film is centered around the stereotypes between the working class and the wealthy, which was particularly strong during the Depression. The rich are depicted as selfish, debauched, and cruel. We see it right off when Parker tells his wife and daughter he has invited Dick to dinner. Mrs. Parker is horrified at the thought of actually having to sit down with a member of the lower classes, especially when she has opera tickets for later that night. Daughter Dot, on the other hand, is amused at the thought. For her it will like going to the zoo. The only reason they agree at all is because Parker put his foot down.

Once we get a look at Dick, we see that the working class he represents is hardworking, virtuous, honorable, and kind. He turns down Parker’s reward check for saving his co-workers, even though we know he could use the money. He refuses to acknowledge his football fame for fear it would give people the wrong impression; that he was a lazy athlete living off his fame. When they begin dating we see that Dot is spoiled, indulged by her father, and incredibly selfish. For her, dropping $10,000 on a fur coat in Paris during their honeymoon is par for the course. And Dot sees Dick as not so much husband material than as a boy toy. Dick, on the other hand, is serious. He believes in the value of hard work to get ahead. 

We see the differences in the two outlooks in three key scenes. The first occurs when Dot invites Dick to lunch at her club and pays the bill. The second occurs when they agree to marry. She produces an expensive ring, gives it to Dick and tells him that she will wear it until he can afford to buy her one. This is a clear indication to the audience that she is not willing to alter her lifestyle one bit and, further, emasculates him by proposing and providing a ring. And in the third, when Dot goes to Dick’s house to meet his mother, makes the dichotomy between the rich and the poor even clearer. Unlike Dot’s mother, Dick’s mother has no prejudices about Dot. She loves her immediately and unconditionally because her son does.

But lest we get the impression the film was made by Marxists, the rich may be frivolous and have nothing in common with the working class, but the moral codes by which they live are in line with their less wealthy peers. While Dot spoiled and manipulative, she remains thoroughly likable throughout. Even her ex, Charlie, who makes his move when Dot’s marriage is in trouble, quickly steps down when she makes it clear she’s not ready to cast married life aside.

The other underlying theme is the movie is misogyny, as exemplified by the title. A bit of obvious foreshadowing takes place early in the film, when right after the dinner party, Llewllyn (Wood) and Henrietta (Young) Post arrive. Henrietta’s a rich socialite, while Llewllyn was once a promising architect. But once they married, she wouldn’t allow him to work and made him quit his job. He now lives on an allowance from his wife, reduced to taking care of her dog, and responding with a “Yes, dear,” on the rare occasions when he is includes in a conversation. 

That Llewllyn is a shell of his former self is obvious once the Posts leave, as the other men at the party refer sadly to him as a “kept husband.” The movie reflects the social mores of the time: it is a fairy tale-come-true when a rich man marries a poor woman (of course she must be pure of heart and not a gold digger), but reverse the situation and it’s a crime against nature. It’s anathema for a rich woman to marry a poor man because it overturns the natural scheme of things, with the result being that roles are reversed and the man is now emasculated. 

As a film, despite the promise of its saucy title (The tag line for the film was "Every Inch a Man – Bought Body and Soul by His Wife.”), Kept Husbands is a mediocre flick with flat characters, wilted dialogue and a predictable plot, directed by Lloyd Bacon in his usual efficient and uninspired manner. It’s a film that could easily be re-released after the imposition of the Code: gender and social conventions are not only upheld, but applauded, and any raciness in the film is kept to a bare (no pun intended) minimum, with sex barely on the radar screen. Despite the promise of saucy doings and Pre-Code emasculating mischief from the headstrong Dot, the film’s message is traditional and spelled out loud and clear to the audience by Dick’s mother when she advises her daughter-in-law on married life: the only way wives can keep husbands is through love, devotion and sacrifice.

On the plus side, it benefits from the performances of leads Mackaill and McCrea, who work well together, and the performances of supporting players McWade, Carr Washburn, and former silent star Clara Kimball Young as the emasculating Henrietta Post. It was her first sound film and her first film since 1925. One sour note is provided by Ned Sparks as Hughie, who is a boarder at Ma Brunton’s. Most of his time is spent as an ersatz Greek chorus, as he spouts cliches such as “What can’t be cured must be endured,” and “Beggars can’t be choosers” in his cynical delivery. Though we can easily surmise that he is supposed to function as the Comic Relief, Sparks instead comes off as quite annoying, reading his lines woodenly with dull bon mots only notable as neither funny not relevant to the plot. The film is all the lesser for his performance.

In the final analysis, Kept Husbands is for Pre-Code fanatics only.

Trivia

The film fell into the public domain in 1959.