Lovers Courageous

The story begins when Willie Smith is a child. He has no interest in school or a career and is a dreamer. This is made worse by very inconsistent parenting--with the father trying to be strict and the mother coddling the boy. Years pass....and Willie has been bouncing about the world doing various jobs and getting fired from them. One reviewer described him as a wastrel...and this isn't far from the truth.

Later, Willie meets a woman whose station is well above him. She is the daughter of an admiral and he's about to lose yet another job. On impulse, she insists he marry her....which common sense would say is not a great idea. Can they manage to make a go of it....especially since his job prospects are minimal? And, if they do marry, what next?

This is only a fair film. I think part of it is the plot but to me the bigger problem is the dialog. It all seems to dreadfully earnest and artificial...like a play and not real life. Not terrible but clearly among Robert Montgomery and Madge Evans' lesser work.

For some reason anyone who says a wrong word about this film gets the thumbs down.Well i don't care this film is so creaky that you can positively see the joints ache.The characters seem to be set in a sort of nevernever land which only existed in plays or films.Montgomery is hardly believable as an Englishman,whatever the slight excuses for his accent.Roland Young is totally wasted.Madge Evans seems totally vapid.One reviewer has referred to it as being a "precode"film,but other than the last line i cannot see very much in this that would not have been passed by the censor in 1934.Quite frankly this film is simply not worth watching unless there is absolutely nothing else to do such as watching the grass grow!

When Halliwell Hobbes describes his and Beryl Mercer's son as a wastrel sad to say he was proved right. The son who grows up to be played by Robert Montgomery is just that. It's a term of the century before the last and more used in the United Kingdom than here. I wish it was in more usage now because it describes many that I've known.

Those people also don't have the good luck to have a happy ending fall from right out of the blue as is in Lovers Courageous. We get to see a bit of Montgomery's life going from place to place and occupation to occupation never 'finding himself'. Eventually he meets and charms Madge Evans in South Africa, daughter of British admiral Frederick Kerr. They marry without his approval and live a life of not so genteel poverty.

I've known a few in my life so that this kind of movie about a wastrel won't find a friendly audience with me. Nevertheless the cast does a fine job.

But I doubt you'll believe the ending either.

This adaptation of a Frederick Lonsdale play is ground in the social mores of the very early twentieth century wherein a quite poor working young man meets a charming, beautiful and wealthy admiral's daughter. Stories of poor men meeting and wooing wealthy women are difficult to write convincingly for the simple fact that such pairings are unlikely at best. This adaptation succeeds quite admirably because the two principals, played by Robert Montgomery and Madge Evans, are both likable and charming. Evans and Montgomery reveal every nuance of two people who meet and fall deeply in love. This is easily one of Madge's finest acting efforts, and certainly the best of the five films in which she appeared with Montgomery. The screen simply lights up when she and Montgomery are seen cautiously pursuing one another. Their romantic moments are so real that one has to remind oneself that they are acting. It is a fact that, in their private lives, they remained close friends until their death.

LOVERS COURAGEOUS has one serious flaw... the selection of Reginald Owen to play Madge's fiancée. He is far too old for the part. Worst yet, he plays the role much too broadly. Whether this is the director's fault (Robert Z. Leonard) or Owen's fault is difficult to fathom. I tend to see more of the director's hand in this, although Pop Leonard, as his casts fondly nicknamed him, may have left Owen to his own acting instincts. Whatever, it is a stretch to think that Evans would be engaged to him.

If Owen seems off-key, Roland Young more than makes up for it. His is a refreshingly light-hearted interpretation of his role of the Admiral's aide. His scenes with Evans are a delight. It might have proved better to have him play Owen's role.

Frederick Kerr plays the crusty old Admiral who judges people by their social class. His character is really an indictment of the social upper classes who displayed their utter disdain for the working class. Kerr plays it to the hilt.

His social counterpart, Montgomery's father, played by Halliwell Hobbes, is a classic example of some members of the working class who felt it improper to try to mix with the upper class. Hobbes is also well cast. His scenes where he tries to convince his young boy that he should work hard to become a postal worker and not advance his station in life are all too real when one remembers social customs and beliefs through World War 1. It was the time when ocean liners held rigid to the class system, mirroring their passengers beliefs. In wiping out a good portion of the upper class, the war also wiped out the lingering Victorian beliefs and customs.

LOVERS COURAGEOUS runs a little over just 76 minutes, short for an "A" production. It is not an important film. With a little more development effort it could have been... but it is easily one of the most romantic films ever produced in Hollywood and well worth the time to watch.

English boy Willie Smith (Robert Montgomery) refuses to be only a clerk in the post office. He becomes a globetrotting nomad. He gets various odd jobs like a bell boy in Toronto and a Canadian cowboy. He ends up in South Africa where he meets Mary Blayne (Madge Evans), the daughter of a British admiral. She is left to choose between an unpleasant engagement and Willie on his unlikely playwright dream.

This pre-Code romance is rather straight. The pairing doesn't have the most heated chemistry. As far as I can tell, she falls for him for being a former Canadian cowboy. Maybe it's more than that, but they do need to work on that meet-cute. As for the melodrama, it gets rather boring especially since the couple is apart. I never got that taken with this relationship.