The Worst Film Ever

Simply A Masterpiece

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Melvyn Douglas was a marvelous actor who somehow never quite made it to the top ranks on acting....but he was terrific in just about everything he did...even crap like "And So They Were Married". He gives it his best and is quite nice in the film but the terribly flawed and clichéd story is beyond anyone's ability to fix!When the film begins, the audience soon realizes that Stephen (Douglas) and Edith (Mary Astor) will fall in love. Why? Because they hate each other and realistically they haven't a prayer of falling in love. But, as the movie is filled with clichés, they soon find themselves in love at the mountain resort they are both visiting with their respective children. Joel has brought his son to spend Christmas there, as he's a widower. And, Edith has brought her daughter and she recently got divorced. The romance is working just fine for a few days, as the resort is snowed in and the two kids are stuck in town. But once they arrive, the brats decide they don't like each other and if their parents marry, life will be awful...so even though they hate each other, they agree to work together to make their parents miserable. This is a sad excuse for a plot, as it's so selfish and nasty...and some of their behaviors (such destroying the Christmas tree and many of the presents of the other hotel guests) isn't funny...it's just cruel. This cruelness definitely was a bad decision in the film....and it's sad because although they are hateful, the two young actors playing the kids actually did a great job with what they were given. It could have been a bit like "The Parent Trap" but was sunk due to selfishness, too many clichés and a few characters who were more caricatures than real, believable people.

A divorced woman and a widowed man both with one child ends up at a ski resort at the same time. It will not be long before the man and woman become friends and quickly think of marriage. But the two kids are not getting along. In fact, it is the two kids that seem to want to stop the marriage and practically team-up to break the couple apart. But guess what, after they finally cause the break-up of their parent they seem to have a change of heart. Now the two team-up to see if they can get the two back together.The story just did not have any excitement. The story was straight forward and veered off the topic only a couple of times. And to be honest, it felt like the two main actors, Melvyn Douglas and Mary Astor, just were not interested with the script or with each other. It does not speak highly of the movie when the kids are the best actors in the film.Perhaps the movie would have been better if the two parents would have been someone that the public could relate. Instead they were actually snobby rich adults with maids and cooks that had all the comforts of money. The viewer could not feel any compassion for the two when their plan was to vacation in Europe for months until the meeting at the ski lodge. Was suppose to be a heartwarming love story but felt more like a bothersome tale.

This has to be one of the most contrived movies I have ever watched. It just seems way too "set-up" to be anything approaching real (even Hollywood's sense of what "real" is).If that isn't enough, despite being made in 1936, by which time there were more modern approaches to movie making, this film seems much older...perhaps from the 1930-1933 time period.In fact, there is only one good thing I have to say about this film -- there's quite a bit of real outdoor photography, and it's quite good, particularly during winter in the mountains. Unfortunately, the portion of the film inside the lodge (most of the movie) seems staged...in fact it has that feeling of a stilted stage play.The two leads are fine actors -- Melvyn Douglas and Mary Astor. But neither could save this dead fish, and in fact, their performances here are -- in my view -- perhaps the worst of their careers. During the first part of the film, the two take an instant and intense dislike of each other, but it's so excessive that I actually found it annoying. It was very difficult to not simply turn the film off, but I finally decided to continue watching for the most wrong reason there is to watch a movie -- to see just how lousy it really is. The two not only warm up to each other after a while, but fall in love. But it just seems so totally fake! He had a son, she a daughter, and here the female couple are all the more annoying since they have both become man-haters. Unfortunately, the children remained annoying far longer than the adults.I am giving this film one of the very lowest ratings I've posted on this site. Stay away! It's poison!

And So They Were Married (Elliot Nugent, 1936) is a fun romantic comedy set over the Christmas season, with divorcée Mary Astor falling for widower Melvyn Douglas at a snowbound hotel as their boisterous children (Edith Fellows and Jackie Moran) plot to keep them apart. Though the production values are a bit low - and there's little utilisation of the festive setting - the kids are great value and Douglas shows the deft comic touch and ability to subtly evoke emotion that saw him spread his screen success to stage and the small screen. There's a lovely moment where he shrugs off his broken heart by ruffling his son's hair and murmuring: "I just need a little time, son."The film is more realistic, and therefore less escapist, than Columbia's usual sparkly fare, as it effectively paraphrases the difficulties of single parenthood. There's a slight over-reliance on visual humour and the title is shamefully generic, but you can't fail to enjoy a film that features both Donald Meek as an exasperated hotel manager and Douglas Scott (young Hindley in Wyler's Wuthering Heights), scene-stealing as a breakaway mummy's boy. Once you've explored the more obvious genre gems from Columbia (It Happened One Night, A Night to Remember, Together Again), it's worth giving this one a go.