With a perfectly selected cast Mervyn LeRoy got good performances out of the
ensemble, especially star Jean Simmons in Home Before Dark. The story could
have used a bit of fine tuning.
Jean Simmons who is an heiress is married to college professor Dan O'Herlihy who is one cold drip of a human being. She's had a breakdown and she's come home to O'Herlihy and the rest of her household which consists of stepmother Mabel Albertson, stepsister Rhonda Fleming, maid Kathryn Card as well as O'Herlihy. She has the pursestrings so the others have to be nice you would think. But she's treated like a doormat especially by her husband.
It's never really explained but Simmons has some deep seated inferiority issues, especially concerning the glamorous Fleming. When she gets home she finds they have a houseguest in Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., a colleague of O'Herlihy's. He's the one truly sympathetic ear in the place.
I did love the scenes with O'Herlihy's faculty colleagues. My father was a professor and for a bit as a lad I worked in a college. Those academicians can be some of the most vain and petty people you will ever run across in the film and in real life. Zimbalist is having trouble fitting in at this Ivy League tower of learning, not the least of which is because he's Jewish. The faculty wives are petty group too and my mother hated it I can tell you as much as Simmons does.
Simmons is wonderful, surprised she got no Oscar nod for her performance. Home Before Dark is a few centimeters short of a classic, with a tighter script it would have been.
Jean Simmons who is an heiress is married to college professor Dan O'Herlihy who is one cold drip of a human being. She's had a breakdown and she's come home to O'Herlihy and the rest of her household which consists of stepmother Mabel Albertson, stepsister Rhonda Fleming, maid Kathryn Card as well as O'Herlihy. She has the pursestrings so the others have to be nice you would think. But she's treated like a doormat especially by her husband.
It's never really explained but Simmons has some deep seated inferiority issues, especially concerning the glamorous Fleming. When she gets home she finds they have a houseguest in Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., a colleague of O'Herlihy's. He's the one truly sympathetic ear in the place.
I did love the scenes with O'Herlihy's faculty colleagues. My father was a professor and for a bit as a lad I worked in a college. Those academicians can be some of the most vain and petty people you will ever run across in the film and in real life. Zimbalist is having trouble fitting in at this Ivy League tower of learning, not the least of which is because he's Jewish. The faculty wives are petty group too and my mother hated it I can tell you as much as Simmons does.
Simmons is wonderful, surprised she got no Oscar nod for her performance. Home Before Dark is a few centimeters short of a classic, with a tighter script it would have been.