The always excellent Carole Lombard takes on a straight dramatic role in 'Made For Each Other', playing wife to James Stewart's struggling 'everyman' husband.
John Mason, a promising young lawyer(James Stewart)meets Jane(Carole Lombard)and they marry impulsively after knowing each other for only one day. Unfortunately, married life isn't peachy keen as promised, with the struggling couple having to postpone their honeymoon for John's work, put up with John's interfering mother (who lives with them) and a chronic lack of money.
Lombard is a revelation (for me at least, I've only seen her in comedy before this)in a straight dramatic role. There are no zany antics from her as seen in the likes of 'Nothing Sacred' or 'My Man Godfrey'; here she excels at playing melodrama. Carole's beauty is particularly luminous in this one, and she has the opportunity to show her talent for conveying complex emotions when the script calls for her to despair over her dying baby.
James Stewart takes on a familiar role as the 'insignificant' John (note the use of simplistic first names to highlight the supposed 'ordinariness' of the narrative). Stewart's 'aw shucks' demeanor and reliability serve the film well. It is possible to suspend belief and imagine Lombard and Stewart as a real-life married couple, as their portrayals are so well-executed.
Lucile Watson (best known for 'Waterloo Bridge') gives a good supporting performance as John's elderly interfering mother, as does Charles Coburn as Judge Doolittle. The thing that ultimately lets this film down is the pacing of the narrative and the overall plot. It's not an overly long film, but some scenes do seem to drag tremendously. 'Made For Each Other' has a tendency to be too sweet and simplistic in it's resolve, and it's a readily familiar story, nothing new here. Lombard and Stewart breathe life into what would have been just a B-grade vehicle.
A lovely thing about this film is the opportunity to watch Carole playing a mother. Lombard was desperate to have a child with husband Clark Gable, and her warmth and caring manner shine through in the scenes with her child. They are tinged with sadness though, as we Lombard fans are all too aware of the fact that Carole was to die tragically in a plane crash only a few years later, she never got the chance to live out her dream in real-life.
7/10.
John Mason, a promising young lawyer(James Stewart)meets Jane(Carole Lombard)and they marry impulsively after knowing each other for only one day. Unfortunately, married life isn't peachy keen as promised, with the struggling couple having to postpone their honeymoon for John's work, put up with John's interfering mother (who lives with them) and a chronic lack of money.
Lombard is a revelation (for me at least, I've only seen her in comedy before this)in a straight dramatic role. There are no zany antics from her as seen in the likes of 'Nothing Sacred' or 'My Man Godfrey'; here she excels at playing melodrama. Carole's beauty is particularly luminous in this one, and she has the opportunity to show her talent for conveying complex emotions when the script calls for her to despair over her dying baby.
James Stewart takes on a familiar role as the 'insignificant' John (note the use of simplistic first names to highlight the supposed 'ordinariness' of the narrative). Stewart's 'aw shucks' demeanor and reliability serve the film well. It is possible to suspend belief and imagine Lombard and Stewart as a real-life married couple, as their portrayals are so well-executed.
Lucile Watson (best known for 'Waterloo Bridge') gives a good supporting performance as John's elderly interfering mother, as does Charles Coburn as Judge Doolittle. The thing that ultimately lets this film down is the pacing of the narrative and the overall plot. It's not an overly long film, but some scenes do seem to drag tremendously. 'Made For Each Other' has a tendency to be too sweet and simplistic in it's resolve, and it's a readily familiar story, nothing new here. Lombard and Stewart breathe life into what would have been just a B-grade vehicle.
A lovely thing about this film is the opportunity to watch Carole playing a mother. Lombard was desperate to have a child with husband Clark Gable, and her warmth and caring manner shine through in the scenes with her child. They are tinged with sadness though, as we Lombard fans are all too aware of the fact that Carole was to die tragically in a plane crash only a few years later, she never got the chance to live out her dream in real-life.
7/10.