Diana Wynard is married to Frank Morgan, a psychiatrist who is clearly a stand-in for Freud. Twenty years earlier, she was the mistress of Prince John Barrymore. Now, like all the Habsburgs, he is forbidden to enter the country. Even so, he stalks through their marriage, a ghost at an uneasy feast. This doesn't stop him from showing up at Princess May Robson's hotel, and commanding Miss Wynard's presence.
Based on Robert Sherwood's play that originally starred Lunt and Fontanne, Barrymore offers himself as a gigantic, self-mocking sociopath, playing the role as he would later play Oscar Jaffee in 20TH CENTURY, magnificently mad, and ultimately aware of it. He overwhelms everyone in his brashness, his assumptions of rights and privileges; Miss Robson may dominate scenes, and Henry Travers, in his first movie appearance, as Morgan's father, likewise, but it is all they can do to hold their own when Barrymore swaggers onto the scene. It's a lot of fun to watch Barrymore. Perhaps that's why the ending is so flat. Morgan makes a rare decision to underplay his role, and this makes Miss Wynard seem less sure of why she makes the decision to stay with him. Has she grown up and come to care for a man who has made his own accomplishments, or is she simply making the safe choice? I'm sure that couples taking the midnight train back to Scarsdale wondered the same thing, with the wife assuring her husband that, yes, it is love.
Based on Robert Sherwood's play that originally starred Lunt and Fontanne, Barrymore offers himself as a gigantic, self-mocking sociopath, playing the role as he would later play Oscar Jaffee in 20TH CENTURY, magnificently mad, and ultimately aware of it. He overwhelms everyone in his brashness, his assumptions of rights and privileges; Miss Robson may dominate scenes, and Henry Travers, in his first movie appearance, as Morgan's father, likewise, but it is all they can do to hold their own when Barrymore swaggers onto the scene. It's a lot of fun to watch Barrymore. Perhaps that's why the ending is so flat. Morgan makes a rare decision to underplay his role, and this makes Miss Wynard seem less sure of why she makes the decision to stay with him. Has she grown up and come to care for a man who has made his own accomplishments, or is she simply making the safe choice? I'm sure that couples taking the midnight train back to Scarsdale wondered the same thing, with the wife assuring her husband that, yes, it is love.