The Wedding Night

OK, you want to make Anna Sten a star like Garbo or Deitrich. What are the very worst things you could do? Cast her as a Polish immigrant farm woman. Dress her in frumpy clothes. Set the movie in cold weather, necessitating her wearing a hat or scarf much of the time. Cast the urbane Ralph Bellamy as her rough-hewn Polish fiancé.

Anna Sten had a lovely face and she wasn't a bad actress. But this vehicle could have sunk any unknown. On the other hand, it's not a bad movie. In some ways, it's memorable.

The male lead is Gary Cooper, in his early days when his lashes were long, his look lanky but gentle. He's very good as a writer who's hit a brick wall with his work. He and wife Helen Vinson are splitsville, or near it; so he goes to his family house in Connecticut. And there he meets Sten, who is delivering milk. (No comment.) I never got the whole big deal about Garbo. Sten is more emotive. But she's sunk in this movie.

Nothing gets a woman's heart pumping a little quicker than an early Gary Cooper movie, and The Wedding Night from 1935 is no exception.

Cooper is writer Tony Barratt - think F. Scott Fitzgerald - whose publisher doesn't want his next book and tells him whatever he had, he's lost it. So he and his wife Dora (Helen Vinson) take off for an inherited country home.

Tony becomes intrigued by the family of Polish émigrés who live nearby, particularly the beautiful daughter, Manya Novak (Sten).

Okay, here is something that confuses me. My friends are of Polish descent. They called their sister Mary Manya. So far, so good.

This family's last name is Novak. That's Czech.

And they say Dasvidaniya, which is Russian. Go figure.

Back to the story. After the father (Sig Ruman) buys a field from Tony for $5,000, Dora wants to hightail it back to New York, now that they have some money. Tony decides to stay. He begins writing a book about the family.

He and Manya fall in love, though it's unconsummated. She is engaged to Fredrik Sobieski (Ralph Bellamy) a real bumpkin, whom she doesn't love. When she decides not to marry him, her father has a fit, and the engagement is back on. Meanwhile, Tony wants a divorce.

Bittersweet film with lovely performances by Cooper and Sten. Cooper in the beginning is immaculate in a suit, and he and Dora are part of the high-class social set. He did play many sophisticated roles in the '30s, but Mr. Deeds and westerns would follow. Instead of strong and silent, here he's animated and romantic.

This film was apparently supposed to introduce Anna Sten to American audiences. Sam Goldwyn wanted to build her up as the next Garbo. I don't know about you, but I don't remember Greta Garbo playing a farmer with dowdy clothes. If he was going to build her up, why not showcase her beauty? She was beautiful, and her acting is very good. To me she hasn't the presence of Garbo or Dietrich, but I think Goldwyn could have given her better treatment.

Helen Vinson really has the strongest role, and she was up to it.

Very poignant story, directed by King Vidor, and beautifully photographed.

Gary Cooper, in a thinly veiled characterization of F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a writer living with a socialite wife in New York City and doing quite well on the party circuit. But he's lost his muse and literally has to move back to his family's ancestral home in Connecticut where the rent is free.

While there he gets involved with some Polish immigrants who have bought a lot of acreage in the Nutmeg state for tobacco growing and farmer Jean Hersholt wants some of Cooper's land. Needing the cash, Cooper agrees. He finds the people there fascinating in an sociological sort of way. And he finds Hersholt's daughter Anna Sten far more intriguing.

The Wedding Night was supposed to be the launching of a new Sam Goldwyn discovery in Anna Sten. But for some reason she didn't catch on with the public though she does give a fine performance. There's a lengthy list of speculative reasons why she never caught on, some have been mentioned by other reviewers.

However the best performance in the film is Helen Vinson as Cooper's wife. She starts off giving the impression she's a flighty airhead, but actually that's not the case. Vinson usually was playing the other woman in her film career, here she reverses type as the wronged wife. You do feel sorry for her, she's done nothing to deserve Cooper's infidelity.

For those who are curious about Anna Sten as she's become something of a symbol as to how not to showcase a talent, The Wedding Night might be worth a look.

Heavy handed dour drama was the last of the big budget films to try and turn Anna Sten, Goldwyn's Folly, into another Garbo. The mistake of that was the actress while not bad, a little overfond of popping her eyes but otherwise fine, isn't suited to that persona. Had they pursued a lighter image for her which she seems inclined to perhaps her career would have fared better in American films. Poor Ralph Bellamy, usually an enjoyable presence in pictures, is made ridiculous by his silly casting as a Polish peasant. Cooper fares better mostly because an accent is not forced upon him and his star power is able to shine through. The person who comes across best even though her character is not the most pleasant is Helen Vinson as Cooper's estranged wife. It is at times confusing since she and Sten bear a strong resemblance to each other a fact not played up in the movie and so it serves no purpose but to distract the audience.

Interesting film, partly because Cooper is cast so completely against the type he is later to be best known for from his Capra films - that is of the rural innocent encountering the corruption of the city. This movie is much more in the transcendental tradition of Henry Hathaway's Peter Ibbetson, also starring Cooper and released the same year. I had never heard of Anna Sten but according to the posts she was a protégé of Samuel Goldwyn in one of her first Hollywood films. She does remind me of a fresh-faced Garbo. Overall the acting is fine and characters are complex, and the direction is up to King Vidor's high standards.

A fine film. The ending in particular is bittersweet.