Merrily We Go to Hell

Plucky rich daddy's girl Sylvia Sidney falls for charming drunk reporter Frederic March. Enabling, delusion, mutual dive ensues. Sidney's work is the reason to see this one -- she tirelessly, valiantly tries to breathe life into this otherwise badly-written, badly-directed 'racy' pre-Code weeper. (It pains me to say that: Dorothy Arzner was the only female features director in Hollywood in the 1930s, and reportedly part of Nazimova's crowd of fabulous lesbians). March's work is general and repetitive -- thoroughly unconvincing. It's an amateur's performance. He got a chance to make amends a few years later as the charming drunk in the superior 'A Star Is Born'. Newcomer Cary Grant gets a few seconds screen time as a hot side piece in the tawdry perdition sequence. Old vaudevillian 'Skeets' Gallagher keeps threatening to do something as magical as his name, but never gets the chance. 'Merrily We Go to Hell' is a waste of a great title. Pity.

Director Dorothy Arzner was extremely popular with her stars because she always coddled them with close-up after close-up and ensured they were always fastidiously wardrobed and photographed to perfection, no matter how soap-suddy the screenplay. "Merrily We Go To Hell" (1932) serves as another typical example of her languid, star-indulgent style. Lovers of weepie-eyed Sylvia Sidney and sartorially splendid Fredric March will enjoy both the 9/10 VintageFilmBuff DVD and its 10/10 Universal rival. The only thing I really liked about this predictably plotted, slow- moving film was the unexpected appearance of perennial butler Charles Coleman as a gossip columnist with a well-founded dislike for our wastrel hero. But as for Cary Grant pouring on the charm in a small bit at a party scene, words fail me!

....most of all, the somber ending - very rare for a 1930s movie. The production is A-class; Dorothy Arzner's direction is smooth; Sylvia Sidney looks exceptionally beautiful; and the script is thin but sophisticated: for example, when Sidney complains to March near the end of the movie that he has never told her that he loves her, you realize that it's true. *** out of 4.