Always a Bride

The horrible overacting of George Reeves really ruins this film. His method of performance basically consisted of yelling his lines, and arching his eyebrow. Of course, the unpleasant characters and ridiculous plot do not help matters, either.

Alice Bond (Rosemary Lane) is expected to marry rich local Marshall Winkler (John Eldredge). Instead, she likes Michael Stevens (George Reeves), but he has no prospects. He turned down a tax appraiser job due to his dislike of Mayor Loomis.

Wow! Michael annoyed me. Marshall is right about him. All that flattery and false happiness is really off-putting. There is a big difference between him and someone like Ned Flanders. Michael is faking it and it shows. The future Superman has his tall stature and good looks. At some point, the fake happiness does go completely overboard into ridiculousness and that's a little funny. As for Alice, I don't really like her. I'm not too invested in this coupling or this movie.

Rosemary Lane has two suitors. John Eldredge is a successful businessman who can give her everything she wants. George Reeves is a lazy good-for-nothing with a smile and a good word for everyone. Naturally, Eldredge doesn't stand a chance. But Miss Lane's parents are adamant: Reeves must gt a job to support her. So he runs for mayor of their small city as the candidate of the phony reform party; everyone figures he won't stand a chance against the well-oiled machine.

This pleasant lightweight comedy is based on a stage play by Barry Conners and has the air of something that had been hanging around since the 1920s. Fortunately it has a similarly lightweight director in Noel Smith, and the result is a fluffy bit of nonsense that looks like everyone else passed on the roles, and it still turned out amusing.

The main reason I decided to see this movie was because George Reeves was in this movie. I had of course seen him in re-runs of Superman as a young child. I briefly saw him in Gone With the Wind. I think this movie has a clever dialog. I liked the fact that the relationship of the older couple was not the usual that is seen in many movies of this time where the woman is submissive and polite to the husband. They are a typical couple arguing. I liked the way the election campaign turned out and the last line of the movie is the best political sarcasm I have heard in a long time. It was much more than I expected, of course looking at George Reeves is a treat in itself and I could not pass up one of my childhood heroes.

I thoroughly enjoyed TV "Superman" George Reeves with Rosemary Lane as the girl he pursues and tries to "win over" from John Eldridge. George does play his out-of-work, contrarian, devil-may-care role "over the top," because that's JUST THE CHARACTER HE IS: a' la Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby, Joel McCrea in Sullivan's Travel, etc. Imagine either of those two actors, Bob Cummings, Robert Young--any of these would have played the part the same. It's BOY meets GIRL, BOY loses GIRL and BOY wins GIRL back by being himself. Good supporting cast, too. With all the renewed interest in poor George via Hollywoodland, see this picture for yourself when it comes on Turner Classics again. You'll really enjoy it: the underdog, march-to-the-beat of his own drummer vs. the staid, safe world out there--who should a girl (and her parents) choose?Some clever dialogue about marriage, nifty mayoral race tactics and a love triangle to boot. GO SEE IT for yourself. It's NOT awful. It's pretty darn good, and only about an hour long!