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Plot:
- by Zoë Shaw
Charlie
Exeter
'DeBrion'
is the leading man in a play written by Jerry. Jerry drinks a lot which
causes problems, but he gets married to Joan. It doesn't last long and she
goes to live with her dad. However, she is preggers and becomes critically
ill. Eventually, Jerry is allowed to see her, and promises to lead a better
life.
Review:
- by Debbie
Dunlap
Fredric March plays Jerry Corbett, an alcoholic who never
got over his big love. Sylvia Sidney is Joan Prentice, the woman who makes him forget.
Until.... Yes, folks, Claire, Jerry's former flame comes back into the picture. Soon it's
back to the bottle and marriage on the rocks for Jerry and Joan. Joan makes the bright
decision that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and begins to drink and
party like Jerry. (CG is one of her flings.) Joan becomes ill from this raucous living and
goes home to her rich daddy. Upon Joan's departure, Jerry suddenly decides he really does
love Joan after all, dumps Claire, and tries desperately to see Joan to tell her. Joan's
daddy prevents Jerry from seeing Joan. A newspaper clipping clues Jerry in to the fact
that he's just become a father. He races to the hospital, struggles with his father-in-law
to see his wife and child, only to discover that his child died just two hours after
birth. "All's well that ends well," as Jerry leans over, kisses Joan and at long
last confesses his love. Depressing!
VARIETY
Film Review - June 14, 1932
- by "Rush"
- submitted by Barry Martin
Broadway screen is knee deep this week in journalist heroes,
plastered, slightly jingled and cold sober. This one has the
plastered hero, a charming irresponsible immaculately played by
Fredric March in a light and graceful way. Persuasive
playing by this young actor and by Sylvia Sidney puts the release
in the running for good box office prospects. In less happy
casting a sometimes muddled story would have raised a question of
its fate.
These players, however, turn the
trick. Both the young people have a substantial following,
and this one will gain them more well-wishers. Strength of
the picture probably will be on the side of feminine interest,
story having to do with the trials and tribulations that beset
young married people, when a temperamental young husband with a
broken heart and a burning thirst and an emotional little rich
girl clash after the wedding day.
Broken heart is left from an
unfortunate love affair and the thirst seems to be inherent in the
reporter genus on the screen. Anyway, here it evolves into
many complications, some of them humanly interesting, some of them
not quite clear and intelligible. Maybe the aberrations of
romantic young couples aren't meant to be intelligible and maybe
they somehow add to the engaging charm of young couples such as
these. Anyhow, they're both very real people, and their fate
engages interest, even if it doesn't arouse any vivid emotional
reaction.
All this is to say that the playing
of the two leads by March and Miss Sidney is the substance of the
entertainment. What happens isn't of great moment, except as
it affects two engaging characters. Fitting most neatly into
the picture is the suave vamp character of The Other Woman, played
with a great deal of poise by Adrianne Allen, a decorative and svelte
blonde who brings a new distinction to the vamp type, which as
lately been becoming a brunet stencil. Skeets Gallagher has
the assignment of the inevitable shadow of the drunken reporter,
playing a strictly utility role with commendable simplicity.
Story opens in a cheerful spirit of
comedy, moves along to a romantic measure and comes to a strong
finish in a touch of sentimental seriousness that rounds out a
fairly absorbing, if slightly commonplace, history. Of
dramatic action there is practically none, play being pitched on a
plane of polite comedy, and the running time is rather overboard
for that style of entertainment. Eighty-three minutes is
quite a stretch of attention in a large measure with pleasant
persiflage and drawing room gatherings, be the romantic tangle
drawn ever so tight. Recounting of husband and wife clashes
can become tiresome if too often repeated, as they are here, and
the 18th Amendment debate can be overdone in the domestic scene as
well as in the political forum.
Only here the tenuous story is
supported by the fact that the people concerned have early made
themselves likable and engaged the interested sympathy of the
audience, a special tribute to the two people who play the parts.
Fine direction probably also
accounts for much of the picture's effect, notable for its artful
directness, direction that stays in the background and works
through its impersonal medium, instead of calling attention to
itself by trick angles and strained devices. As much cannot
be said for the dialog, which is often extremely 'literary' and
must have been a sore trial to director and players
both.
New York
Times Film Review - June 14, 1932
- by Mordaunt
Hall
- submitted by Barry Martin
Besides the screen
attraction, "Merrily We Go to Hell," there is at the
Paramount a colorful and frequently amusing stage program, which
winds up with an impressive spectacle as the background for
Everett Marshall's singing of "Mandalay."
There have been many strange
changes in story titles, but few of them as strange as that of the
picture at this theatre. Imagine Cleo Lucas's novel, "I,
Jerry, Take Thee, Joan," being known in shadow form as
"Merrily We Go to Hell"! This production is another with
excellent acting, especially by Sylvia Sidney and Fredric March,
but the many scenes showing constant intoxication of a newspaper
man who writes a successful play are not particularly interesting
or edifying.
It seems as though Jerry Corbett,
played by Mr. March, behaves so badly that no woman would forgive
him. He gets drunk when he is expected to be at a party at which
Joan Prentice, an heiress, announces her engagement to him, and
also when his play is presented. If he does not imbibe too freely,
he is an hour or so late, and he adds to these offenses by
carrying on after his marriage a flirtation with an old flame, who
plays the leading role in this play.
The elemental comedy in this film
provoked a good deal of hearty laughter. The audience roared when
Corbett placed his handkerchief on a carefully polished floor and
they howled with glee when at the most elaborate marriage ceremony
Corbett, being unable to find the wedding ring, brings forth a
bottle opener, which is put upon the bride's finger.
The title, "Merrily We Go to
Hell," is a toast Corbett is in the habit of offering during
his lamentable drinking bouts. His pal, Buck, impersonated by
Richard Gallagher, has his work cut out in watching the writer.
Buck is constantly voicing what the country needs. At one point it
is "more blondes and more men like myself." In a cabaret
he wants less ventilation and more smoke.
After Joan has accepted Corbett's
proposal of marriage, he visits a speakeasy and has a high old
time telling various persons that he is going to be married, but
advises them to keep the information under their hats. If they
have no hat on, he finds one for them. Even the bartender is told
the secret, and as time goes on Corbett and his friends, including
Buck's girl, decide to burst into song, but they have no baritone.
This entails a search for a baritone and the three persons visit
several drinking places, where they discover a baritone in the
person of a bartender. This section of the picture has its
humorous moments.
In the final episodes, after Joan
has left her husband and returned to her father's home in Chicago,
there is a vein of sadness. Joan is critically ill in a maternity
hospital and her father refuses at first to permit Corbett to see
her. Joan, however, asks for her husband and it is presumed that
his presence helps her to recover.
This picture was directed by
Dorothy Arzner, who has done some good work, although the church
marriage scene is a Hollywood notion of what such a ceremony looks
like. Miss Arzner, however, has evidently been handicapped by the
script.
In the course of the hectic
proceedings there is a fling at modern ideas, which are contrasted
with those of years gone by. The theme, so far as this is
concerned is, however, quite a little vague in its real
meaning.
Review
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