I Want a Divorce Film Review

If you are a newlywed, you might want to skip over this one. Not the bubbly Dick Powell-Joan Blondell film that I was expecting. Watching marriages or relationships slowly crumble is about my least favorite type of film. You can see the carcasses and bomb craters on the side of the road. I hope this wasn't bad luck for the couple as they were married at the time but divorced within a few years. How many Hollywood marriages work I wonder. The female second lead, Gloria Dickson, got it worse. She married the director Ralph Murphy but his fooling around on the side ended that marriage after two years and her life stepped off the cliff as she became an alcoholic and died in a home fire at 27-years old. Well, this review is off to a cheerful start.

So does the film. Powell is in law school and meets Blondell in a courtroom when she testifies in her sister's (Dickson) divorce proceedings. Blondell is very chic in her hat that looks like a miniature spaceship has landed on her head. The sister was basically bored but came up with a lot of nonsense for the court. She wants to be a party girl. Later Powell and Blondell - who has foregone her blonde hair to be a brunette - meet up again and hit it off like firecrackers.

When she talks of love to her grandmother (Jessie Ralph) and looks as if she could float, it is a wonderful moment. We have all been there. In the time it takes to make a tuna sandwich they get married - and then reality weasels its way in. He becomes a divorce lawyer, makes good money but is never around. The sister meanwhile begins to realize she made a mistake and wants her husband back - even making lamb stew - but that train has left the station. Come on kids. Get back together. Life is short and passes by like a freight train leaving you wondering where it went. Harry Davenport plays the grandfather, Frank Fay is the family friend and of course Louise Beavers is the black maid.