If I Were Free

If I Were Free is based on a John Van Druten play that never got over to Broadway entitled Behold We Live. The British stiff upper lip tradition is shown at its finest or its silliest depending on your point of view.

Barrister Clive Brook and Interior Decorator Irene Dunne unhappily wed to others fall in love. Brook carries with him a souvenir of the last war which causes him all kinds of health problems and being married to a cold fish of a wife Lorraine McLean doesn't help.

Irene Dunne is married to Nils Asther a real smooth operator who works in the nether regions of morality and legality. He's got the best role in the film and makes it count with only a few lines.

At this point in her career Irene Dunne was churning out these soap operas regularly at RKO. I think the ending looked like it was tacked on. I'm reasonably sure this was not the ending the author had in mind.

Irene Dunne fans will like it and Clive Brook beats out Herbert Marshall for the best British stiff upper lip.

I enjoyed this 1933 movie made before the censors had their hand into things. After 1934 you would not have seen this same story, the unwanted wife would have had to die or would have been a bad wife and a divorce the right thing for her husband to do. The story is rather sophisticated in that the unwanted wife is just asked to step aside so her husband's love affair could be made legitimate. Oh,they had made an agreement that if either one got tired of the other than one or the other could walk away from the marriage with no argument. Apparently the unwanted wife had had an affair earlier, it didn't work out so she wanted to hang on to what she had and not give her husband up to Irene Dunne's character. Though Clive Brock's character was diagnosed with a life-threatening problem that required a very risky surgery, the unwanted wife did not want the divorce and demanded that his lover, Dunne leave the hospital even in the face of the fact that Brock was near death and calling for Dunne and not his wife. The wife does not want to allow the visit but Dunne pushes by and goes to the dying man's bedside and her presence stimulates Brock's recovery from surgery and they are seen in the last scene as a married couple on holiday. Censors would not have permitted this to pass if done later than the mid thirties. Especially since the unwanted wife did not want or agree to the divorce when she found out that her husband was having an affair and wanted to leave her for another woman. It was a good story and I would see it again.

If a soap opera (romantic melodrama, if you prefer) were deprived of its intricate plot complications and convoluted relationships, what would be left? Probably something on the order of this picture, a mild, conventional story of a love affair whose development is at least honest and somewhat touching - until its resolution is brought about through extraneous matters, rather than the characters and their aspirations.

Irene Dunne does not have quite the command of this role that she usually displays. Clive Brook offers his familiar jaded ennui (just right, if a very dry martini is your drink), and dear old Henry Stephenson once again tries to do right by everyone.

There are assuredly worse ways to spend sixty-five minutes than with this picture, but why its producers bothered to make something so bland is not easily explained.

If you are a romantic at heart, like me, then you'll enjoy this movie. With any other actors it might not have been as good but Irene Dunne and Clive Brook really bring this story to life and it becomes more than just your average romance. Ever since I saw Irene Dunne in Love Affair with Charles Boyer I was a fan so I was SO glad to see TCM show this in tribute to her on her birthday! I was also glad to get to see another fine performance from Clive Brook who I'd only seen in one other movie before this one. I think I'm becoming quite fond of him! ;-)

Oh and for you silent movie fans - Nils Asther plays Irene Dunnes husband - he was SO good at playing jerks! It's a pity his career didn't last longer. Anyway - if you are a fan of romances or just the actors in this movie I highly recommend watching this the next time it's shown on TV!

Irene Dunne fans will probably like the film. Clive Brook is absolutely wooden. What a poor choice for Dunne's leading man.

Brook's facial expression hardly changes, whether he's supposed to be happy or sad, whether he's speaking of his despair or whether he's making love to Dunne. His kissing is positively mechanical. He spends most of the film looking away from his fellow actors or looking down at the floor. In fact, he was much older (about 46) than his character was supposed to be (38), and he looks it.

The plot now seems tired. The plot of a later film, "In Name Only", bears a lot of similarities to this film: (1) Man in unhappy marriage meets his "soul-mate"; (2) Wife won't give him divorce; (3) Sickness in hospital with man calling out for his paramour rather than his wife. This begs the question—which of the authors copied the other? This film hasn't aged well. Since it was made pre-code, they could have spiced this up, but didn't. There are many other films of this vintage which we still enjoy seeing today, but in my opinion, this film isn't one of them.