She Married Her Boss

First, I must respectfully disagree with one reviewer here who kept describing the film as a screwball comedy. Even in the 1930s, every comedy was not a screwball comedy, and this isn't one (despite one kinda goofy car episode). It's not a drawing room comedy either. It's simply a domestic comedy...in fact, is it really a comedy. Let's see, you have an obsessive boss that has no real personal life, a sister that's a terrible prude and suppresses any family joy in life, a young daughter who is so unhappy that she's become a terrible brat, a young lady (Colbert)who has her eyes on her boss but then finds herself in an unsatisfying marriage, and a little girl who then pines because the stepmother who has brought some joy into her life then leaves home. In many ways, this is a pretty serious story -- with some comedic moments.

Several reviewers have wondered why the Colbert character is interested in the Melvyn Douglas boss character to begin with. A fair criticism. The screenwriters and director sure haven't given us much of a clue about that. But how many of us have found ourselves in an unfulfilling relationship or marriage, ultimately realizing we made a mistake. And I tried to remember that this film was made in 1935. Films were not always very sophisticated back then...they were slowly growing up...and the story here is certainly more sophisticated than many other films from the same time.

Claudette Colbert is quite good here, though obviously not quite as well developed as an actress as she was in the 1940s. Melvyn Douglas was good in the role he played, although it's rather hard to like that role. Two standout performances were 12-year-old Edith Fellows as Douglas' bratty daughter (who develops into a rather nice child once the home situation improves), and Raymond Walburn as Douglas' butler (the scenes of Douglas and Walburn in a drunken state were among the better drunk scenes I've seen).

If you see this movie for what it is -- a drama story with comedy overtones -- you'll really enjoy it. It's far better than many other mid-30s productions...and 1939 was just around the corner.

This is Gregory LaCava's sanitised follow up to IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT but here with a homely and surprisingly unsexy Claudette Colbert. It's not a funny comedy but rather one of those ok, "nice" wholesome feel-good movies.

Just a couple of generations ago it was virtually unthinkable for a woman to have a job after she'd got married. Then came the washing machine etc giving women the opportunity to do all the housework and also slog away from 9 to 5 as well. This is the normality of the age when this was made and this picture is about what happens when that unwritten law is broken.

There's no mistaking that this is 1935, a man's world, a time when men were men and women were ...just their wives. Despite its archaic attitudes, this is a light hearted effort. Comparisons are easily drawn with with Ruth Chatterton's FEMALE made a few years earlier which had lines such as: I am only a woman, business is no place for women and a woman's role is to have babies. This gentle comedy however is much less preachy. Whereas Ruth Chatterton's character "sees the error of her ways" and gives up trying to do a man's role, Colbert's Julia doesn't quite abandon her career but rather tries to balance having a job with being a proper little wife. For 1935 this is actually quite progressive.

The one aspect which is actually funny - in a weird, weird kind of way is Miss Colbert's crazy wardrobe. Robert Kalloch was Columbia's high profile dress designer but I think he must have been going through some sort of mid life crisis at the time. Claudette Colbert was one of the most beautiful and sexy actresses of Hollywood's golden age but not in this. Maybe this uncharacteristic dowdiness was a deliberate attempt to show her as a beacon of the new cleaned up, decent and morality upstanding Hollywood? Gone is that naughty twinkle in her eyes, gone are the suggestive glances, gone are the slinky silk dresses. This new "post code" Colbert is the model of modesty, the perfect example of how women in 1935 America should be.

Had this been made before the code, it might have had more bite. It might also have been more melodramatic like FEMALE but what 1935 gave us was just something fairly bland and undramatic but nevertheless generally pleasant.

She Married Her Boss is one of those films where the title says it all, no need for any elaboration. Of course the bride is Claudette Colbert who's been crushing out on boss Melvyn Douglas for years.

But before she's a bride Claudette is a secretary and a most efficient one at that. She's got the business well organized, but Douglas's home is something of a shambles with spoiled brat of a daughter Edith Fellows ruling the roost and some crooked household help ripping him off.

So it's a business arrangement that Douglas has in mind when he marries Colbert. But he's slow on the uptake to realize that Colbert has romance in mind. Playboy Michael Bartlett is not slow however and he's got a nice singing voice to go with some oily charm.

Colbert and Douglas get some nice support from folks like Raymond Walburn as the new butler who gets tanked with Douglas, Katharine Alexander as Douglas's snooty sister and Jean Dixon doing the Eve Arden part before Eve Arden was around.

Gregory LaCava directed She Married Her Boss and we're certainly not seeing a director's cut. Harry Cohn's editors at Columbia Pictures butchered this one, the film ends rather abruptly though in truth you know where it all is going. And people who've had loved ones killed by drunk drivers won't find Raymond Walburn careening drunkenly through the streets behind the wheel all that funny.

Still the stars and the planets do shine in She Married Her Boss.

"She Married Her Boss" is a forgotten but alluring Columbia classic, directed by Gregory La Cava, a modest auteur with a flair for upbeat improvisation and delicate touch. La Cava's unassuming touch is less fully evident in this small heartwarming romantic comedy than the director's superior pictures like "Stage Door", "My Man Godfrey", and "Primrose Path".

But "She Married Her Boss" features highly resourceful Claudette Colbert as the competent department store secretary Julia that falls for her boss Richard Barclay (Melvyn Douglas); it also has an unintentionally funny, almost surreal moment involving a department store window and mannequins. As it turns out the film is all Colbert's -- and another reminder what a lovely, divine comedienne Ms. Colbert was. The supporting cast, all wonderful, includes

"She Married Her Boss" is the sort of cuddly classic that works best if you watch it with someone you love or care about.

Most modern viewers of 1930's comedies will be accustomed to the necessity of suspending disbelief and modern sensibilities to entirely enjoy these films. However, She Married Her Boss contains one or two scenes which make this a difficult task. The main problematic scene is the drunk driving scene which is sufficiently reckless as to be just plain alarming to modern audiences but fortunately occurs at the end of the movie so as not to be troubling throughout. The second such scene however is the (aural) scene of Julia (Claudette Colbert) spanking Anabelle several times with a hairbrush. In modern times, with the idea of physically punishing children being so controversial, this scene refuses to simply fade into the background of the film and become simply a comedic scene and lingers in a slight feeling of unease in watching the remainder of the film despite Annabelle's growing affection for Julia. Simliarly Julia's friends taunts of Annabelle appear somewhat cruel; being adults ganging up on an unhappy child, no matter how obnoxious her behaviour.

Although some of the comedic aspects of the film may not translate to a modern audience, the film nevertheless contains some gems of serious scenes - Claudette Colbert's reaction to her husband mocking her for behaving like a woman and his criticism that she is making their marriage "just like any other marriage". Similarly the shop dummy scene can be enjoyed on a number of levels, the drunken comedy is delightful but also wonderful is Colbert's pained expression and declaration that "Julia doesn't live here anymore". Finally my favourite scene of the film, when Melvyn Douglass confronts Colbert after her antics in the shop window appear in the press, effectively calling her "second hand goods". Colberts reactions from resignation, to pride to hurt to confrontation are a pure acting lesson.

While some of the comedy may struggle to appeal to modern audiences, the scene of the new bride (Colbert) being carried over the thresh-hold by her new husband's butler remains one of the funniest moments in 1930's comedy and Julia's kicking of the child shop dummy (surely a reaction to her troubled step-daughter) remains a guilty pleasure so that despite some reservations the film continues to work on both the dramatic and comedic levels despite some need to be prepared more than usual to put modern considerations aside to entirely enjoy this.