It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A retired auto manufacturer (Walter Huston) and his wife (Ruth Chatterton) take a long-planned European vacation only to find that they want very different things from life.This William Wyler classic has an interesting fate in hindsight: the two leads are now relatively unknown, while the supporting cast (such as Mary Astor) are more well-remembered. Actually, the film as a whole has been forgotten by many. Another reviewer pointed out that critics and historians love it, but the average viewer has never heard of "Dodsworth".The movie received many Oscar nominations, but only one win: Richard Day for Best Art Direction (not one of the celebrated awards). I may be mistaken, but I feel like the film should be praised for its subject matter. Divorce and international affairs in the 1930s? Seems like the sort of topic the censors would really frown on.

I don't know how to review this movie, because there's no one aspect I can comment on without looking like I'm singling them out over the others. Every part of this movie adds up to something so much greater than the sum of its parts. Ultimately, I suppose the credit goes to the director, William Wyler, though in 1936 I'm not sure he would have had the same kind of control a director can have now with casting a movie, deciding on a screenwriter, crew, and that sort of thing. But it all comes together for something so perfectly conceived, that I can't really just mention the story, or the performances by Walter Huston and Ruth Chatterton; the writing, the cinematography, or set design.A description of the movie or even the type of film or genre it's in wouldn't do it justice in the way that I could at least describe some of my other favorite movies. It does everything right-it's so sophisticated, sensitive, mature, in dealing with the marriage of a middle aged couple going on their first vacation in twenty years together.Minor spoiler-it deals with so much, but if you were to describe the story, it's about how Dodsworth (Walter Huston) and his wife, Fran (Ruth Chatterton) leave America and really try to enjoy themselves and each other for once. But Fran is insecure about her age and her older husband, and this insecurity begins to push her away from him and towards, well, not necessarily even other men, but away from anyone.And yet, that doesn't come close to describing what this movie is really like or what it's about. It's every moment that's played so sensitively. It's got lots of emotion, but it's not sentimental. It's got a ruthless efficiency in building each scene upon the last, clearly giving each character different motivations and showing how their relationships change.I haven't seen this movie show up in many discussions or top lists, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't affect anything about the movie, whether it's under seen or under respected. TCM showed it one evening as one of their Essentials, which gave me some exposure to it. Then I read David Mamet's book, Bambi vs. Godzilla, which keeps referring to Dodsworth. In it, he says that it's one of a few perfect movies. So I finally bought the DVD and watched it in earnest, and it was a singular experience.For all the words like "mature" and "sensitive" or "grown up" that get used to describe it because of just how realistically it shows the dynamic of a marriage that is unraveling, those don't really describe what the movie is about. Yes, it is all of those things, and it is refreshingly realistic and attentive to the details of the relationships in it. More than most movies, and perhaps surprisingly so for any movie of its period. Or today.Dodsworth is more than those things because it's like an event that transcends movies. This isn't really even a review. I just feel like someone has to add, for anyone curious, what an incredible experience this is. It's a jewel of a movie. Whenever I see a movie like this, and see how most people regard movies today and see them mostly on their opening weekends (not to be elitist, because there's a lot of reasons for that, and I'm not using my interest in movies to leverage myself as having better taste-and I know people would love this movie if they saw it), I feel like I've found this secret. A movie like this is subversive to me, and that may be peculiar because of how much I love movies and want to make them, but I feel like it's an alternative to a life of working a regular or corporate job and having what I would (though I'm overstating it for lack of better words) call a mundane life.Movies in general, and especially singular movies like Dodsworth, are like secrets to me of how incredible a single experience can be. I have been thinking about it constantly since I saw it, and whenever I see a movie that even approaches it's greatness, my mood is lifted, my problems seem to go away, and a movie like this can seem like all I need or care about, because it's like an experience in another dimension. And it's so quotable-the dialogue comes so densely in pace and meaning, and it's got lines that will stun you.To borrow a line from the movie, if you watch it, you may become fascinated by it.

In "Dodsworth," the title auto magnate embarks on a European tour with his wife, who takes up with a series of penniless but titled men. To modern ears, the plot sounds a tad soapy, but in 1936, social-climbing American divorcées were the destroyers of dynasties, not dowagers out of Danielle Steele, so this Sinclair Lewis novel gets a very tasteful, respectful film treatment with an A-list cast (Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Mary Astor) and director (William Wyler, master of middlebrow, middle-class drama -- see "The Best Years of Our Lives"). The results are uneven, thanks to an awesome performance by Huston and an awful one by Chatterton, but generally entertaining, thanks to genuine suspense about the survival of the Dodsworth's marriage.Craggy Hollywood legend Huston plays craggy American archetype Sam Dodsworth, a man of humble origins who claws his way to the top through brains and industriousness. After he sells his automobile company to a huge competitor(quite realistic for the time --young audience members will be shocked to learn that there were once more than three car companies in America), his American archetype wife, the vaguely ditzy and dissatisfied Fran (Chatterton), convinces him to enjoy his new leisure by sailing for Europe since she's never been happy in her home town of Zenith (had she read more Lewis novels, she'd realize no one is, not even George Babbitt). Innocents (or idiots) abroad is another shopworn American theme, and here, Europe doesn't get an especially sympathetic treatment since the whole continent is portrayed as swarming with well-dressed smoothies looking for any chance to sponge off of rich, gullible American women. Ruth throws herself at tux after tux, one of which encases a young David Niven (who bears a striking resemblance to a middle-aged David Niven and an old David Niven), until Walter finally has enough and succumbs to the charms of lovely Edith Cortright (Astor), a sad-eyed, charming American divorcée living in Naples. Astor is good, she's very good, as lovely Edith, and I wonder if more traditionalist audiences in the 1930s were rooting for the end of the Dodsworth marriage (as I was) or the reconciliation of Sam and Fran. Wyler and the screenwriters try to build some sympathy for dear Mrs. Dodsworth by subjecting her to a humiliating dressing-down by a slow-talking European countess (the wonderfully named Madame Maria Ouspenskaya) whose son Fran aspires to marry. But since the character of Fran is so shrill and annoying, thanks in part to the script and thanks in part to Ruth Chatterton's inability to convey any real feeling (the character makes about three transitions in every scene, none of which ol' Ruth bothers to register), you kind of wish that the good Madame will pull a pearl-handled revolver from the folds of her gown and put Ruth and the audience out of their collective misery.Once you ignore Ruthie, though, "Dodsworth" is a pretty good time. Between the epic score and the epic scenery, it's a fantastically lush production, and there's some clever filmmaking going on between the economical dialogue (entire relationships are established in three lines) and smart cinematography (every time you see a character standing in a doorway, something major is about to happen). And Huston excels as the kind of homespun hero that Spencer Tracy or Jimmy Stewart were too young to play in 1936, and to his great credit, he doesn't shy from Sam D's darker side -- the scene in which he returns, cuckolded, to Zenith and starts yelling at everyone in his house is fantastically uncomfortable. Angelica inherited her talent from him and her looks, blessedly, from somewhere else.

I have limited experience with the works of Walter Huston and Mary Astor, both of whom sell this one for me. Notwithstanding its 8.3 rating, this is certainly not among my favorite William Wyler films. I like it about as much as The Little Foxes (a low 7/10).Ruth Chatterton's Fran is her husband's inferior mentally and morally. For me, the low points are when this pretentious woman is rather oddly gallivanting around with other guys in order to stave off old age. Her husband Samuel, who happens to 'adore' her, is no curmudgeon. It annoys me when a character I like is so committed to one I don't like for reasons that don't cut it for me. Fortunately, Mr. Dodsworth exhausted his tolerance by the very satisfying ending.I would have much preferred more on the relationship between Huston's Samuel and Astor's Edith, two very endearing characters. I'll be sure to prioritize my films to see list with them in mind.