Week-End Marriage

When I watched this recently, I had a feeling that someone had inadvertently mixed two movies together. The first half is a light-hearted story of courtship and marriage, with Ken (Norman Foster) pursuing and marrying Lola (Loretta Young). After that, the movie becomes very serious, with Ken losing his job, having all sorts of objections to his wife having a professional job, then getting drunk, hanging around with another woman (Sheila Terry), and waiting for Lola to bail him out of jail. Lola is very disappointed in Ken (no kidding!) and leaves him to take an executive job in St. Louis. There, she meets and is pursued by George Brent, but rushes back to Ken's side when he's ill, even though he's living with the tramp who got him arrested. Ending is predictable, and I think it shouldn't have been that way.

The movie's good and has lots of pre-Code touches, like Ken and Lola actually sharing the same bed, and Ken cheating on Lola with a trampy blonde. Young is absolutely lovely, and Aline McMahon steals every scene she's in as Young's sister-in-law. Enjoyable pre-Code stuff, though the final message--and Doctor Grant Mitchell's lecture to Young--are woefully dated.