The Man I Married

The Man I Married
Directed by Irving Pichel
Produced by Darryl F. Zanuck
Written by Oscar Schisgall (short story)
Oliver H. P. Garrett
Starring Joan Bennett
Francis Lederer
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • August 9, 1940 (1940-08-09)
Running time
 77 minutes
Country United States
Language English

The Man I Married (alternative title I Married a Nazi) is a 1940 drama film starring Joan Bennett and Francis Lederer.

Plot

A successful American woman, Editor at The Smart World - Editorial, General Offices, Carol Cabbott (Joan Bennett) has just married a German, Eric Hoffman (Francis Lederer), a streamline marriage. They have a seven-year-old son, Ricky (Johnny Russell). They are to have a vacation to Germany to visit Eric's father he didn't see for ten years, although everybody tells them to go to Germany is foolish. A friend, Dr. Hugo Gerhardt (Ludwig Stössel), originally German, asks them a favor: his brother, the famous philosopher Gerhardt has been arrested and put in a concentration camp, if they can bring him money and somehow help him. When they finally get to Berlin, not his father but his old schoolmate Frieda (Anna Sten) awaits them at the station. His father at home, an old director and owner of a factory, tells them he wants to sell everything and leave Berlin, that he can't stand any longer that atmosphere. Even his butler is a Nazi, and Frieda is always around. An active enthusiast Nazi woman she drags Eric to Nazi gatherings till the point that he doesn't want to leave Germany, wants to keep the factory and stay as a German. His wife Carol is not intentioned to stay there and as time passes she recognizes her husband less and less.

While he goes to nazi gatherings, she tries to find out something about Gerhardt, with the help of Kenneth Delane (Lloyd Nolan), foreign correspondent in Berlin. They find out he has been killed and bring the money to the widow, who doesn't want to leave Germany to be near her husband. They assist to scenes of deliberate cruel denigration of people by Nazis. Carol and Eric decide to divorce as he is in love with Frieda, who has put all sorts of things in his mind, but he wants to keep his son, as he is German too, he says, whereas Carol doesn't intend to leave Ricky in Germany. Finally the grandfather Hoffman tells his son, that if he doesn't let go the son with his mother to the United States, he will go to the Police and tell them that his mother was a jewess. Faced with the fact to be a Jew (as in Judaism the affiliation is matrilineal) he breaks down, as for the Nazis it's the worst that can be. Frieda leaves him disgusted. Carol and Ricky leave for New York. Delane who had hoped to get a leave to go back home brings them to the station and tells her he has to stay another 5 years.

Cast

Response

New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther called the "anti-Nazi propaganda film" "restrained", "frank and factual" and "generally entertaining cinematically".[1] He singled out Lederer's performance for praise, but of Bennett he wrote, "she does little more than model dresses and express incredulity."[1]

References

  1. 1 2 Bosley Crowther (August 3, 1940). "The Man I Married (1940) THE SCREEN; 'The Man I Married,' a Drama of Inside Germany, at the Roxy". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-08-03.
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