I cannot agree with most of the reviewers here. No one loves movies from this period more than I do, and I often cut them a great deal of slack, allowing for period style variances from things we can't easily accept in our contemporary culture.
But "Toy Wife" is just a bizarre, I think unpleasant film, and no more so than in its depiction of slavery. "Good" characters (like Louise, the sister played by Barbara O'Neil) say things like, "you will be beaten if you don't behave" and somehow there is nothing wrong with this kind of threat. Meanwhile, Luise Rainer has to die in the most moralistic Hollywood way - looking exquisite throughout - because of her sins. Most demeaning of all, beautiful (and black) Theresa Harris actually performs with skin-darkening makeup and a hint of a mustache.
This movie makes race relations in "Gone with the Wind" look like the most enlightened in film history. Would that Metro had asked George Cukor to bring his wonderful period touch and understanding of human feeling to this film; instead we have clunky Richard Thorpe, who allows Rainer to simper and moue her way through the part, and brings out the most wooden performances you can imagine from two excellent actors, Robert Young and Melvyn Douglas. Not for a moment do we believe any of the love that (in theory) is propelling all the characters. Imagine the material in the hands of Frank Borzage - or Victor Fleming, for a different approach that would have at least had some vivacity.
So really, a disappointment.
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