When Ladies Meet

Films In Focus

By Ed Garea

When Ladies Meet (MGM, 1933) – Directors: Harry Beaumont, Robert Z. Leonard (uncredited). Writers: John Meehan & Leon Gordon (s/p). Rachel Crothers (play). Stars: Ann Harding, Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy, Alice Brady, Frank Morgan, Martin Burton & Luis Alberni. B&W, 85 minutes.      

Over a year since they signed her, MGM finally decided to give Myrna Loy some starring roles. The first was in The Barbarian (released May, 12, 1933) opposite Ramon Novarro. It performed well at the box office so another film was readied for Loy.

Chosen as her next vehicle was When Ladies Meet, a drawing room comedy/drama based on Rachel Crothers’s Broadway play. Ann Harding, who Loy worked with in The Animal Kingdom (see our review here), was borrowed from RKO to play one of the leads. Robert Montgomery, who was making rapid progress at MGM, was chosen as one of the male leads, with Frank Morgan as the other. Acting in a “tits and sand” saga opposite Ramon Novarro was one thing, playing against the likes of Ann Harding was another. The studio was anxious to find out the mettle of their new star. Could Loy hold her own with the sterling cast?

Harding is Claire Woodruf, the wife of philandering publisher Rogers Woodruf (Morgan). His latest love interest is author Mary Howard (Loy) with whom he spends much time rewriting the final chapter of her novel. Complicating things is newspaper reporter Jimmie Lee (Montgomery), who is madly in love with Mary and has proposed to her. He suspects Mary and Rogers are involved, but afraid to alienate her, he decides not to confront her directly. Instead, he tells Mary that the ending of her latest book, in which a mistress confronts her lover's devoted wife and receives her blessing, is unbelievable. Mary dismisses Jimmy's complaints and quietly arranges with her best friend, widow Bridget Drake (Brady), to spend the weekend in the country with Woodruf.  

   

After Jimmy deduces Mary and Bridget's plans, he becomes determined to nip the affair in the bud. First, he offers to introduce Woodruf to a famous, elusive writer, whose books Woodruf desperately wants to publish, during the weekend. Later, Jimmy interrupts an intimate moment between Woodruf and Mary when he climbs Mary's balcony and drunkenly calls to her. Undaunted, Jimmy plays a game of golf in the country with Claire and, confident that Woodruf already has left for Bridget's retreat, telephones his publishing company and states that if Woodruf wants to meet with the famous author he must do so immediately as he is about to leave New York.

While Woodruf hurries back to the city, Jimmy hatches his plan by first telling Claire about her husband’s latest romance. He then and asks her to pretend to be his "date" in order to make Mary jealous. Amused, the oblivious Claire, amused, agrees to the sham and introduces herself to Mary, Bridget and Bridget’s gigolo boyfriend, Walter Manners (Burton), as "Mrs. Claire," Jimmy's "cousin." As Jimmy hoped, Mary and Claire immediately take to each other and as a storm rages outside, they exchange thoughts about life, love and the ending to Mary's novel. 

At first, Claire confirms Mary's theory that a loving wife could give up her husband were she convinced that he would be happier with another woman. However, later, as the two women talk in Mary's bedroom, Claire reveals that for years she has been aware of her own husband's affairs and senses that he is yet again involved with another woman. She then confesses that if this woman were to ask her what Mary's protagonist asks of the wife in Mary's novel, she would wish the woman dead and hang on to her husband at all costs. 

At this moment, Rogers bursts into the bedroom calling to Mary, and the cat is now out of the bag. Shocked at the turn of affairs, Claire asks her husband to choose between the two of them, but, chagrined, he refuses to comply. In disgust, Claire tells Mary that she is willing to give up Woodruf after all and prepares to leave the house.

Woodruf later confesses to Mary that his intentions toward her are not as serious as she believed they were and that he has decided to make up with his wife. However, Claire tells Woodruf that she no longer loves him and leaves. Jimmy advises Rogers to rival to go after his wife and find a way back into her heart. At the end, while a bemused Bridget tries to make sense of the evening's goings-on, Jimmy consoles a heartbroken but wiser Mary with his love-filled jokes.

Afterwords

When Ladies Meet is an almost literal adaptation of Rachel Crother’s drawing room drama. Except for a few changes of scenery from one locale to another, it remains static. However, once we establish our interest, the characters are strong enough and the actors portraying them appealing enough to hold our interest.

The film is loaded with give and take and scads of witty repartee by the characters. As Claire, Ann Harding givers another one of her patented performances. Oblivious to her husband’s plans, she plays her scene with Montgomery brilliantly, thinking it’s all a lark. Later, conversing with Mary, she puts up a social front. But when blindsided and now faced with the reality of the situation, she shows her true feelings. This is life, not conjecture, and she behaves as any wounded spouse would given the situation. She is absolutely believable. Harding specialized in tearjerkers at RKO, and though this film was on a somewhat more sophisticated level, he adapts beautifully. However, her typecasting in a parade of tearjerkers as the woman always ready to sacrifice herself for good of others caused a decline in her popularity, and combined with a nasty divorce, caused her to leave films in 1937. After marrying second husband Werner Janssen she took a five-year hiatus, returning in 1942 as Norma Lawry in MGM’s Eyes in the Night, starring Edward Arnold. In her autobiography, Myrna Loy remembered Harding as “a very private person, a wonderful actress completely without star temperament, but withdrawn.”

Robert Montgomery handles his role as the lovestruck Jimmie quite well. Knowing that his main function was to play off co-star Loy, Montgomery does so with barely a tic in his performance. By this time he has much experience with this sort of character and makes the most of it. 

It’s Frank Morgan, though, who surprises us. He specialized in playing courtly, sometimes eccentric or befuddled, but ultimately sympathetic, characters, such as the Wizard of Oz. It’s a little startling to see him in a romantic role, and I suspect many of us had trouble at first imagining him as someone Myrna Loy could go head over heels for in a movie. However, once we get used to him as the philandering publisher, we see how well he builds an overwhelming sense of fraud and deceit into the character. When he finally comes clean to Mary after Claire leaves, the difference between the poseur and the real man is startling and well done.

But it’s Alice Brady as the cynical Bridget who almost walks off with the movie. In the role of the observer, obsessed with image and sex, a sort of Greek chorus, she has some of the best lines.

This film is a real test for Loy, for she’s working with extremely talented actors who could easily overwhelm her character. Judging by the results, however, Myrna handled herself quite well in this heavyweight crowd. In her autobiography, she tells of paling around with Montgomery and Alice Brady (who as the cynical hostess, almost walks off with the movie), spending off hours in their company at Brady’s home. The film was later remade in 1941 with Joan Crawford, Greer Garson and Robert Taylor in the roles of Mary, Claire and Jimmie respectively. The remake is far glossier, but the difference in substance is the difference between the Pre-Code movies and their later counterparts. In the 1941 version, the dialogue isn’t as crisp and one gets the feeling that something is missing. Opt for the Pre-Code version, the quality of the dialogue gives it a decided edge.