Behold My Wife!

In the 1980's the word 'incredible' became standard fare for people to describe something where they probably didn't mean such a thing. The word means that something stretches credulity to the breaking point or posits that something just cannot be. Well, last night I watched a movie that stretched things nearly to the breaking point. We've all watched adventure movies, from early serials to Indiana Jones, where credulity is stretched to the limit, but we understand that that is part of the fun of the film. But - NOT romance! Romance stretched to the limit has its own limits! I watched "Behold! My Wife" (1934) with Sylvia Sidney, Gene Raymond, H. B. Warner, Laura Hope Crews, Juliette Compton, Monroe Owsley, Ann Sheridan, young Dean Jagger, Eric Blore, and several other well known character actors. The story begins by having Gene Raymond drunk as a skunk - evidently, an habitual thing with him - and having proposed to Ann Sheridan, a common secretary. Raymond's family is the snootiest of the snooty and a common secretary is not to be allowed! After several shenanigans, Ann Sheridan jumps out of a high building, committing suicide. By the way, this is a very early role for her, and its the first where she goes by the name Ann Sheridan instead of Clara Lou Sheridan. She's very good in her part. She also surprised me with the baby fat in her cheeks which disappeared within a year or two. Anyway, Gene Raymond is very upset and takes off on a binge across several states. He eventually meets Sylvia Sidney who is the daughter of an Indian chief. Sidney, for the record, never looked as beautiful as she does in this film. I've seen her in films for years and always found her inviting, but she is downright beautiful in this film. Okay, to continue: Raymond marries Sidney after her father has disowned her (it's too complicated to explain!), but uses the marriage as a revenge tactic against his parents. His parents are not amused by the incident! We have Native American versus 30's white man and it is used in the most obnoxious way! All in all, all of the points are incredible in the real sense of the word. This would never have occurred. And yet... And yet... I really enjoyed this film anyway! It was nicely acted; but...it was acted as if it were comedy much of the time. This was not a comedy. Mitchell Leisen directed the film, and I think he had a difficult time making up his mind what the film was to be. Social study. Romance. Drama. Part comedy, part drama. Who knows. It's only a two star out of four film, to be sure, but I still enjoyed it. So will many who have the opportunity to see it.

I found this very strange film on YouTube and I really doubt if you'll see this on any television station. This is because the film, though well intentioned, has a lot of racist images of American Indians that will make a lot of people cringe. It also has one of the goofiest plots I've ever see in an old film from Classic Hollywood.

Michael (Gene Raymond) has a socially conscious family that is just plain evil. They're much more concerned about outward appearances than doing what is right or being happy. So, when Michael finds a regular poor girl to marry, his sister decides to destroy the marriage! She lies to the lady--telling her that Michael has run off and married another. The plan works wonderfully--and the fiancée commits suicide!! When Michael learns the truth, he storms off--going on a self-destructive bender across America.

At this point, the film starts to get mega-weird. When Raymond is nearly killed due to his reckless driving, he ends up at an Indian reservation. There he is accidentally shot! The Apache lady (Sylvia Sidney) who raises him back to health is a walking stereotype--with beads, costume, etc. all looking like she popped out of a western (even though it is supposed to be 1934). Her brother, by the way, mostly says 'How' and spends his time drinking! So much for creating a positive image of Native Americans! But here is the odd rub...the film is SUPPOSED to be positive in its depiction of the Apache and is about racial unity and understanding!!

Soon, Michael decides to marry Tonita Storm Cloud (Sidney) because he figures they'll be horrified to see him married to someone who ISN'T in the social registry! He brings her back--assuming that the newspapers and society swells will all just die laughing. But his strange plan doesn't go exactly as planned. If the plot sounds ludicrous, you're right...and it only gets crazier!!!

Apart from showing American Indians in a silly and very stereotypical way, the film also picks a very white actress to play the lead. The rest of her tribe DID appear to be Natives--and Hollywood often did this--painting up white actors to play the main parts and using actual Indians for the rest. Yet, inexplicably, the film ALSO wanted to preach understanding and tolerance!! Bizarre to say the least.

But is it any good? Well, it's NEVER dull! You also stay interested--mostly because Michael is such a jerk as well as his family. The way I see it, it's a guilty pleasure--a well made bad film that is awful BUT fun to watch at the same time.

By the way, the YouTube listing for this film called it 'Pre-Code'. Well, it isn't. The Production Code was implemented in July, 1934-- and this film debuted several months later, in December. Plus, apart from the controversial interracial marriage angle (I am surprised they were allowed to do this based on the new code), there isn't anything salacious of Pre-Code-like about this movie.

This film is not good yet remains strangely watchable, possibly because it can never make up its mind whether it's a comedy, social drama or romance.

Gene Raymond plays the son of an incredibly snooty "What will the neighbours think?" high society family who gets drunk and engaged to a secretary (Ann Sheridan). The family is horrified that he would embarrass them by marrying any person with such a lowly position in society so they convince the girl that he had run out on her. She, unexpectedly, jumps out of a high rise window in response and Raymond, bitter at her suicide, takes off on a cross country trip.

It's when he reaches New Mexico that the story really starts to turn strange. Raymond meets an Apache woman (Sylvia Sidney) and decides to get his vengeance on his family by marrying her, knowing that it will make them a laughingstock among their social crowd. Things will not evolve quite as Raymond had intended and the story will turn unconvincingly romantic in its final chapter.

This is one of those you've got to see it to believe it films. Sylvia Sidney, while attractive, looks nothing like an Indian, aside from wearing braids and an Indian outfit. There is no attempt on the actress's part to assume any kind of accent and, once she presents herself dressed up looking like a white woman she, of course, wows all of those around her. The Gene Raymond character, as gathered from the plot description, is a complete jerk no matter what the screenplay may have him later do to try to redeem himself.

The film's cast, however, is a reasonably impressive one, with Laura Hope Crews and H. B. Warner playing Raymond's parents. (Crews, thicker than a brick, at one moment asks those around her if they couldn't just hide the Indian under a bed somewhere). Ann Sheridan, in a small role at the film's beginning, is somewhat pudgy faced (it wouldn't be until her Warner Brothers contract in another couple of years that they would start to turn her into an "Oomph Girl"). Dramatically, though, the actress is quite effective in her sympathetic role in this film. Paramount would largely waste Sheridan as an actress during her contract years there but this is one of the roles at that studio in which she does shine, albeit briefly.

Gene Raymond's family doesn't want Ann Sheridan (in one of nineteen screen appearances that year) to marry him, so they tell her he's gone to Europe and hand her a check. She throws herself out of a window. Raymond gets in his car and goes on a drunken spree that ends in Arizona with a bullet in his shoulder, with Sylvia Sidney as his buck-skinned nurse. To gain revenge on his family, he marries her and takes her back to New York.

The modern viewer will be annoyed by the casting of White actors (later Oscar winner Dean Jagger also appears as an Apache)and the wrong details (Miss Sidney's Apache father wears a Comanche head dress), despite anthropologist Oiver Lafarge being one of the script writers. That's not the point of this movie, though. It's another of the weepers that Miss Sidney appeared in during this period. She loves Mr. Raymond desperately and, as usual, is fine in her role. So is Mr. Raymond. He spent most of the 1930s in lightweight romantic comedies, more notable for his blond good looks than his acting abilities. For 1934, with the Production Code about to take force, this was actually a brave movie, with its themes of miscegenation and hypocrisy. Six months later it could not have been made. Eighty-five years later, it seems coy to the modern era.

When his bride to be commits suicide after being lied to by his family the groom leaves home and meets an Indian Squaw that he eventually marries. His real reason for the marriage is to get back at his family but the plan backfires. Only 79 minutes long and is fun to watch. Sylvia Sidney pulls off the Indian Squaw role fairly well and Ann Sheridan does a nice job as the bride.