DODSWORTH (1936) The education of an American husband abroad

DODSWORTH is a very old movie and yet a still astute and refreshingly mature drama about love, marriage and divorce. Middle-aged Midwestern Magnate Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston) is head of an automobile manufacturing company. His slightly younger wife Fran (Ruth Chatterton), a shallow and vain woman in obsessive denial about her age, talks him into retiring and taking her to Europe. Immediately, she begins to view herself as a sophisticated world traveler, and Sam as boring and unimaginative. Craving excitement and attention, she begins a series of flirtations which Sam patiently indulges until she announces she's leaving him for a titled gentleman. Heart-broken, Sam roams to Italy where he runs into Edith Cortright (Mary Astor), a divorcee whom he'd met en route to Europe. The two fall in love and Sam agrees to let his wife divorce him. But then Fran's engagement is foiled by the nobleman’s Old World mother (she refuses to give her consent, calling Fran too old, an irony that hits her hard). She calls off the divorce and begs Sam to take her back and take her home (where their first grandchild has just been born, another ironic twist). He agrees – more out of loyalty than love – but in the climactic scene moments before the ship sails for America, Sam realizes the marriage is over. DODSWORTH was perhaps the first Hollywood film drama (based on a novel by Sinclair Lewis) of the sound era that so forthrightly addressed the complexity of a failing marriage and impending divorce, made especially compelling since Sam Dodsworth is such an admirable and upstanding character who means well and tries so hard to uphold the ideal of marital commitment. Sharply directed by William Wyler and wonderfully acted (Huston had done it on Broadway), the film is still relevant after 77 years. (Trivia note: Watch for the brief but memorable appearance of 20-something David Niven in one of his very earliest film appearances, as a shipboard Lothario.)