The Right to Romance

Margaret Simmons (Ann Harding) is a very able and busy plastic surgeon. Some of her cases are women who just want to be better or younger looking, others are serious accident victims. When she meets the son of a former patient, Bobby Preble (Robert Young), he mentions his surprise at the doctor being a woman and then he mentions that he smells something peculiar, and she mentions that it is ether - she just came from the OR. So, feeling like she has lost herself and her femininity in her profession, she takes a leave of absence to just enjoy life.

While she is in California, she runs into Bobby again. Or I should say that he almost collides with her. He's acting like a complete jerk, doing loops in his plane and drinking heavily. He almost runs into the entire cafe where she is dining. When Bobby sees Margaret not in her scrubs, he falls for her, wines and dines her, and then follows her back to New York and proposes. They marry on the spur of the moment - even though a big wedding has somehow been inexplicably arranged - and settle down to normal married life. But just because you can take the boy out of the night life doesn't mean you can take the night life out of the boy. Complications ensue.

This film was a bit of a mess. There is a loud soundtrack through the first half that often obscures dialogue, which was something most films didn't do after about 1930. Then the film suddenly is completely devoid of soundtrack for the second half.

Robert Young was a rather neutral looking fellow, so he could play honest forthright characters, or victims of circumstance, or a completely immature if well-meaning cad like he is here. But even though this was the precode era I was just not expecting that ending. It was as if to say that everything Ann Harding's character has done over the past 70 minutes was a mistake, so back to the drawing board!

I give it a 5/10 because the plot overall is pretty unexpected.