User reviews

Monty Wooley is British artist Priam Farll in "Holy Matrimony" from 1943. Farll is a reclusive painter living in a remote area with his manservant, Henry Leek (Franklin Pangborn). The two return to London when Farll is told he is going to receive a knighthood. Leek, however, becomes ill with pneumonia and dies. When the physician mistakes him for Farll, Farll goes along with it and takes on Leek's identity. This way, he can avoid the knighthood ceremony, which he dreads.

Then Farll receives a letter from one Alice Chalice (Gracie Fields), a widow who has been in correspondence with Leek through a marriage bureau and is expecting to meet him. A complication.

That's a tame complication compared to what's coming. Leek, apparently, was already married (to Una O'Connor) and has two grown sons. She sues for bigamy. Farll and Chalice marry, and he continues to paint, but that causes problems too. His paintings are being sold as originals, but he was supposedly dead when they were painted.

Amusing film with wonderful performances and a good story. Wooley is great as a stubborn man who is determined to protect his privacy and hold onto the life he has. Gracie Fields gives a very straightforward, honest performance as the strong Alice. And Franklin Pangborn is his usual delightful self, though we see way too little of him.

"Holy Matrimony" is a wonderful comedy drama starring Monty Woolley as Priam Farll and Gracie Fields as Alice Chalice. With a name like the latter, one wonders if it was just picked for a good laugh or if there might have been some other inside reason of the author or screen writer.

Wooley and Fields only made two movies together, but they are both very good comedies, and with a little satire. The other film, "Molly and Me," came two years later. There is a similarity in the two characters that Fields plays. She takes charge when needed, and gets Woolley's characters out of trouble. The later film is more comical, and Fields is the main character. She is billed ahead of Woolley, where Woolley has the top billing here as the main character.

The plot of this 20th Century Fox film is very good, and probably somewhat original for its day. It's based on a 1908 novel by British author Arnold Bennett, titled "Buried Alive." The idea of switching identities with a dead person has been used a few times in movies - some comedies and some other genres. It was used in another film being made by RKO at the same time as this one. "Mr. Lucky" starred Cary Grant and Laraine Day. RKO was filming that comedy romance and caper story while 20th Century Fox was filming this movie.

Woolley and Fields dominate this film in their presence and dialog, but some top supporting actors of the day contribute to the humor in their lesser roles. Eric Blore is Henry Leek, whose name Farll will go by after Leek dies of pneumonia. Alan Mowbray, Una O'Connor and Franklin Pangborn are familiar faces among the supporting cast.

Priam Farll has been a famous British painter who has lived abroad for 25 years, and whom no one would recognize. When his art dealer summons him to England to be knighted by the king, he can't refuse. He and his valet, Henry Leek (played by Eric Blore) pack up and depart Fiji for London. But Leek takes ill on the ocean voyage and shortly after they arrive in London he dies of double pneumonia. The doctor fills out the death certificate, assuming that the dead man is the famous painter. Farll, who always has disdained the press and public spotlight, seizes upon the idea to assume Leek's identity. He later meets Alice Chalice, to whom Leek had proposed, and she takes him for Leek because he had sent her a photo of the two men and didn't identify himself in the picture.

Some very funny scenes ensue. One is when the first Mrs. Leek shows up (Una O'Connor) with her three sons. Another is when the king shows up to pay respects to the deceased Leek who is supposed to be Farll. And another is when the famous painter is to be buried with public ceremony at Westminster Abbey. The comedy climax comes in a very funny scene with some nice jabs as the British courts. Farll has two moles on his left shoulder which he refuses to expose to prove his real identity.

But Alice Chalice, aka Mrs. Leek but now Mrs. Farll comes to the rescue and there's a happy ending because "Home is Where the Heart Is," as her homemade crocheted picture reads. During the court case, the London newspapers carry all sorts of flouting headlines. One reads, "Lloyds of London offering odds of 2-1 no moles." Another headline reads, "American claims record 105 moles." Another reads, "Farll's moles under scrutiny."

Woolley and Fields both had careers on stage and screen. He had the longer period of filmmaking and played on Broadway and TV. Fields was also a singer who passed on a suggestion that she sing opera. Instead, she sang and performed in dance halls and on stage. She was an intrepid entertainer of Allied forces during World War II in Europe, Australia and the South Pacific.

This film is one of several in which the character Fields plays is named Gracie or Grace. There are some very funny scenes here with appropriate dialog, mostly by Woolley. Here are some favorite lines.

Henry Leek, "Which shall I lay out for your trip sir - your trousers or your knickerbockers?"

Doctor Caswell, "Well, there's no doubt about it. The sea air's the most dangerous thing on earth."

Henry Leek, "I'm afraid, sir, I have a confession or two to make." Priam Farll: Don't be a fool. Never make a confession until you actually feel rigor mortis setting in. You might recover." Leek, "No, this time I'm done for. I know." Farll, "Nevertheless, I don't want to hear it. Why, I haven't the slightest doubt that you are a first-rate scoundrel at heart. If you don't mind my saying so, you're such a shady-looking individual."

Doctor Caswell, "Oh, didn't I read somewhere where he ran away from England some years ago to marry a Fiji witch or something?" Priam Farll (as Henry Lee), "It was far more likely sir, that he ran away from England years ago to escape your wife." Doctor, "Great Scott, did he know her?" Farll, "I speak, of course, sir, in hyperbole."

Mourner/Spectator at Westminster Abbey (Cyril Ring, uncredited), "I say, governor, who's being buried?" Priam Farll, "Me." Spectator, "Funny, eh?"

Priam Farll, "Now, how on earth could a brewery have financial trouble? Look at the beer people drink - buckets of it. Why, I myself must have put away several hundred thousand gallons of it." Alice Chalice, "That's what father used to say. Put your faith in an Englishman's thirst is as gold in the bank, he says."

Priam Farll (as Henry Leek), "Leek, sir, Henry Wadsworth Leek."

Priam Farll, another time as Leek, "Leek, sir, Henry Greenleaf Leek."

Monty Woolley plays Britain's most distinguished artist who lives the life of a recluse in the jungle with his valet. When the valet dies, Woolley assumes his identity to continue a life of peace and becomes wedded to Gracie Fields. All is bliss.....for a while.

Utterly charming and devilishly witty. Woolley is terrific as Field's adoring husband but has a razor sharp tongue for everyone else. The couple go very well together and their relationship comes across as very sweet and totally believable. The strength here though is the script which is full of caustic one liners and enjoyable characters for Woolley to let rip at.

This film is mainly watchable for its two stars. It us a pleasant and enjoyable film but it isn't particularly funny or dramatic.

Warning: Don't expect the usual Monty. He's very toned down in this one.

"Holy Matrimony" existed for me only as legend for the longest time. My father's friend Bill Gitt (renowned projectionist and elder brother of film preservationist Bob) was a great fan of this and often spoke of it, though I can't recall ever seeing it as a young lad. But I searched long and hard and finally tracked down a DVD of it (not a bad print at all), and it is truly enchanting. Marvelous, marvelous performance by Monty Woolley, in a very understated mood -- those who know him only from "The Man Who Came to Dinner" will, I think, be quite pleasantly surprised by his work here and, from Gracie Fields, a miraculous one. The first time I watched it I thought, well, she doesn't do much. But then I wanted to see it again almost immediately. And it's true, she doesn't do much, but the little things she does are simply exquisite. A great, really subtle performance, not at all played for laughs, but funny all the same. Her delivery of the simple line, "That's it," is a lesson in charming simplicity. John M. Stahl, that strange, almost mythical director, has a marvelous effect on actors (see, for example, Adolphe Menjou in "Letter of Introduction," where he really plays sincerity... well, sincerely): without fancy photography, he seems able to give them an almost mystical radiance. And he has an amazing cast of character actors to work with here: Eric Blore, Una O'Connor, Alan Mowbray, George Zucco, Laird Cregar, Melville Cooper, Ethel Griffies. A superb Nunnally Johnson script (his best?) and an excellent score (Cyril Mockridge) -- typical of Fox films of the 40s and early 50s. A film worth seeking out, one you will want to watch time and again.

John M. Stahl's "Holy Matrimony" isn't much of a movie but it's a great vehicle for its stars, Monty Woolley and Gracie Fields. Based on Arnold Bennett's novel "Buried Alive" it's a comedy of mistaken identity. When his butler dies, painter Woolley allows everyone to think that it was he who died and when the butler is buried in Westminster Abbey Woolley assumes his identiy and later marries the widow, (a splendid Fields), the butler was courting by correspondence. It's very funny in its daft way and is splendidly cast throughout. Nunnally Johnson was the producer and wrote the screenplay and does a very good job on both accounts. Minor it may be but it's very likeable.

This gentle and beautiful comedy has a tone and mood uniquely its own. It is so soft and so gentle that it seems to be made of liquid, and with such a great cast it is a delicious liquid. Monty Woolley and Gracie Fields are wonderful together - they are both such warm and truthful performers. And the entire supporting cast is superb. The script is strong, and the direction finely-tuned. A truly lovely picture.

The year after he made the very serious and moving drama The Pied Piper, Monty Woolley let his hair down and made the delightful comedy Holy Matrimony. I always love when actors vary their material; it makes me think they're rewarding themselves for their hard work by taking a break.

In this cute British flick, Monty plays a reclusive writer who hates publicity. He's about to be knighted and, dreading the attention, gets granted a stroke of luck - at the expense of his friend and valet. His faithful servant drops dead, and continues to serve him from the great beyond. Monty takes his identity and lives under the radar! To his great relief, he gets treated far differently when people think he's just a lowly valet. To his great surprise, his real valet was keeping up a romantic correspondence with Gracie Fields. When Monty meets her, will he pick up where the love letters left off? I always associate Gracie Fields with the famous David Niven joke when he accidentally told Prince Rainier that Grace Kelly was the best of all his conquests. Checking himself at the last minute, he quickly changed the name to Gracie Fields. Poor Miss Fields, but it's funny to remember the joke when you see her down-to-earth, frumpy style.

Rent this obscure English comedy if you like that style of humor, and if you like to see Monty using his comedic talents. He won two Rag awards by being in dramas, so Holy Matrimony was a nice treat.

Any movie, even a bad one, is better if Money Woolley is in it. So, regardless of the quality of "Holy Matrimony", it was on my must-see list as it stars this wonderful and under-appreciated man. If you have a chance, read up about him...he was a VERY interesting character and acting was only his second career. The first one will probably surprise you!

As usual, Woolley plays a very talented misanthrope. He's Priam Farll, a famous artist who hates people and lives with his manservant (Eric Blore) on an island. He's also not at all happy when he learns he's to be knighted but reluctantly agrees to leave for the ceremony. On the way, his servant becomes deathly ill and the doctor mistakenly thinks the now deceased man was Priam....and Priam decides to take advantage of this and remain incognito. Let the world think he's dead...and let him go back to his wonderful, isolated life! However, he has a change of heart...but by then, no one believes that he IS the famous man! Obviously there's much more to the story than this, as all this happens just in the first 15 minutes or so of the movie! What is next? See for yourself--I don't want to spoil the fun--and this IS a fun little film. It won't disappoint and is exquisitely written and very well acted.

By the way, the folks at 20th Century Fox Studios must have loved the pairing of Gracie Fields and Monty Woolley, as they both starred in a wonderful film immediately after this one..."Molly and Me".

This is a virtually flawless little gem. Quiet, perfectly paced.

Actors who do only caricature in most movies - Franklin Pangborn - show that they can actually act here. Eric Blore gets a death scene. Imagine that! Everything just moves on, with a warm charm that never descends into the sentimental, much less the saccharine. The timing is perfect.

It's not witty. It's not particularly clever, though it is certainly humorous at times. You like the main characters, though they certainly have their faults.

I'm starting to repeat myself here to fill enough lines, and I don't want to blather on. But if you get a chance, watch this movie. It's just very well done.

There was another, ten years back, His Double Life - that of course had a bit more talented lead, in Roland Young and incomparable Lil Gish. Here naturally Gracie was miscast - since it required a dramatic presence, of course not that Gracie was as eyesore as her over-acting male counterpart. But the major shortcoming of it wasn't much in acting department as - and ironically the one in which it won Academy ! - the conceptualisation. That's where the first one reduces it to pygmy level. I haven't gone through the story from which both were made, so I can't comment on which had been better adapted, but being unbiased on that aspect, naturally all my first as well as optional votes go to the 1933 version. And of course it once again makes one wonder, why are the remakes, even when almost copy, are always inferior ? Only the actors ? Which of course had been on the decline from the golden age, but here it had been much more. In 1933, the hero was Enochlophobic, whereas in the 1943, he was more of unsocial. The behaviour that were much better explained by the phobia, were not explainable by the just being unsocial. And if the director wanted him to have the phobia, they missed it by large margin. The mix-up which changed the bodies (and identities) were similarly much more plausible - the bed, the dressing gown, and realisation while both alive and deciding to go along, and the logic were much more plausible. Even quite a bit of story sequences had been changed - later one earlier and earlier one later - and not for good. For example, the first wife arrival - in the 1933, there was alerady a suspicion in Lilain's mind, due to Oxford's visit, and also claim by Lilian that she knew that the husband had been 'virgin' or whatever equivalent, before they married, but here it was a clear proved case of bigamy, and hence protection was not simply understood, nor was the refusal to show moles on very flimsy stand. The Phobia was definitely a much stronger ground. And the second irony (along with the Academy Award) is the IMDb scores - that was is about a point less than this ! I agree that Young's character was - well one could call sissy - but he was supposed to be like that, and should be a merit than demerit. Even thouh he too kmight have gone a bit overboard, but Lilian was a counterfoil. As usual - recomemndation, skip it and go for "His Double Life" of 1933.

When talking about the great writers of Great Britain from 1880 - 1940, one thinks of Wilde, Shaw, Wells, James, Conrad, Hardy, Kipling, Stevenson - maybe Conan Doyle, Beerbohm, Chesterton. There is one name that was once fully worthy of being listed in this group, but this person has sort of vanished (except for one novel) from public attention. The writer was Arnold Bennett. In his day novels like CLAYHANGER, RICEYMAN STEPS, THE CARD, and BURIED ALIVE were known around the English-speaking world. Bennett was the chronicler of the "Five Town" area of London, where his main fiction characters (usually lower or blue-collar types) came from - for Bennett came from that area originally. In the film THE CARD (with Alec Guinness and Glynnis John) there is a statement at the start that mentions the Five-Towns.

But after Bennett died in 1931, his readership disappeared. The sole exception was THE OLD WIVES TALE, a grown-up view of the unsuccessful married lives of two sisters. The others were basically forgotten.

Aside from Guinness's THE CARD, the only other Bennett novel to reach the screen was BURIED ALIVE, made twice into sound films (in 1933 with Roland Young and Lillian Gish, and in this 1943 film, HOLY MATRIMONY). It is a wonderful comedy, and gave Monty Wooley another specialized film to give his patented irascibility full flower. Here he plays Priam Farli, the leading English painter of his day, who returns from the South Seas to be knighted, only to find that his dead valet (Eric Blore) is mistakenly identified as him. The valet is buried in Westminster Abbey (with King Edward VII in attendance) while Wooley watches from the public benchs. Wooley sets up a house, under his valet's name, and hires Gracie Fields as his housekeeper. Eventually they fall in love and marry. But money is running out, and Fields (noting her husband's artistic abilities) sells several to a dealer (Laird Cregar). Cregar recognizes them as Farli's pictures and sells them very quickly. But one of the buyers finds that the picture she bought was of an incident that happened after Farli died. Cregar is sued, and confronts Wooley. Eventually it boils down to a second legal problem: that Wooley finds his valet was married before, and never got a divorce. Confronted with bigamy charges (the first wife, Una O'Connor, can't recognize Wooley is her husband or not), Wooley is finally confronted with the only way of identifying himself as Farli or the Valet - by physical means that he opposes revealing.

All the performances are wonderful, led by Wooley and Fields (who would do a second film, MOLLY AND ME, in a year). Cregar's Clive Oxford again showed he could play comedy (possibly even more subtlety than we think - Hector Arce's biography of Tyrone Power mentions that Power noticed that his friend Cregar coughed in a suggestive manner as though to suggest that Oxford was a homosexual who disapproved of his secretary's preening herself). Even George Zucco, normally a master of film menace, here managed to portray a prosecuting barrister doing slow burn after slow burn when dealing with the irrascible Wooley in court. Altogether a grand show. And a good place to go in order to get reacquainted with a forgotten literary master.

I found this on YT by searching Monty Wooley. Unknown to me, the revelation is Gracie Fields, an established stage actress with few screen roles. John Stahl and Nunnally Johnson were golden age storytellers cranking out a couple solid films a year. Surprised there are no remakes.

Of course I've heard of Gracie fields but this is the first time I've seen her act and wow you can see she has star quality I actually think the plot held up well and the chemistry between between the 2 stars was excellent.

Monty Woolley and Gracie Fields (the latter in her Hollywood debut), both on top form, make a surprisingly successful team in this delightful adaptation of Arnold Bennett's satirical play of 1908, 'Buried Alive', previously filmed in 1933 and before that three times as a silent. The presence of Laird Cregar always makes a film worth watching, and the supporting cast that he heads is outstanding.

(Ironically - SLIGHT SPOILER COMING: - a few years later Han Van Meegeren found himself in a similar scrape when he had to confess to the lesser offence of forging Old Masters when he found himself in the dock charged with illicitly dealing in them.)

Enthusiastically recommended.

Not one of Arnold Bennett's best novels but one that deserved better treatment than it gets here. It would have been better made in the UK where the accents would have been better and the acting much improved. By the way the reviewer who thinks the "Five Towns" are in London should try studying a bit of geography. They are, as any fule kno, the towns in Staffordshire sometimes called Stoke-on-Trent.

I fairly recently reread some of Bennett's best known 'Five Towns' novels but was unaware of Buried Alive. What a delightful film it made and one which popped up on YouTube.

Gracie Fields was star of the very earliest part of the 20c, her light shine brightest on the Music Hall stages of the U. K. and on live radio. Though she made occasional ventures into film at home and in the US (and was indeed the highest paid film actress in the word in 1937) her recorded legacy (vinyl apart) is intermittent. The word that 'Our Gracie' came from is gone now, her singing style is so out of fashion as to make her recordings almost wholly obsolete, her humorous stage characters now likewise beyond living memory. But this film does give some insight into the real warmth that she possessed, and some of her real acting talent. Like Gracie, the playwright Arnold Bennett has fallen out of fashion and on the basis of this offering, that's a real shame. The film has charm in abundance, and the leads are excellent. But for me, it's an opportunity to connect with a superstar of her time that is the films biggest treasure. She only worked occasionally in the second half of her life (having busted a gut in her younger years) and it's a shame we have so little to remind us why she was such a star. For me the film has a Capraesque feel, and though it's an old fashioned conceit, it still works. In the mate 60s the play was updated into a stage musical with moderate success. Perhaps it's due for a revamp, the bones of the play are strong. A bit of a forgotten gem all round.

Director John M. Stahl is a pre-Sirkian figure who has invariably imbued even the most mundane and improbable material with intelligence, sensitivity and a vivid visual sense.

One of his most enjoyable films is this adaptation of Arnold Bennett's novel 'Buried Alive' which the author himself had turned into a successful play and who better to write the screenplay for this third Hollywood version than the prolific Nunnally Johnson, equally at home in comedy and drama.

Full of gentle, low-key humour the film's great success lies in the seemingly improbable but as it turns out inspired pairing of Monty Woolley and Gracie Fields whose simpatico is palpable whilst the all-pervading eccentricity is enhanced by the casting of Una o'Connor, Alan Mowbray, Eric Blore and George Zucco. The imposing Laird Cregar, tragically lost at just twenty-eight, had previously proven himself a match for Woolley in the stage production of 'The Man who came to Dinner' and does so again here.

Mr. Woolley and Miss Fields were to appear together again in 'Molly and Me', directed by Lewis Seiler but the material is not as engaging and Seiler is no Stahl.

Arnold Bennett, one of England's finest writers, is now alas rather neglected but he has at least acquired the distinction of having an omelette named after him.

This film is either over-rated or dated. Part of the problem is Mony Wooley's one-note style of cynicism, which after a while loses its appeal. A few well-placed witticisms are always good for a laugh, but when the entire film is based on Wooley's supercilious character, repeated in other movies, it gets a bit tiresome, though it does work well in another Wooley movie, "The Pied Piper."

This movie plods along and seems rather pointless, much ado about nothing. It's always good to see Una O'Connor, especially in an unusually restrained role (comparatively speaking).