Born to Love (1931) User Reviews (13)

Constance suffers

[hotangen · 7/10 · 6 February 2015]

They don't make 'em like this anymore. But the weeper genre was popular with the ladies once upon a time, and Bennett led the pack of martyrs. Her suffering in Born to Love is all the sadder because it could have been so easily avoided if she had just answered her husband's questions frankly and fully. But not Bennett. Her evasiveness followed by her unforgivably cruel words turned this kindly man's love for her into hate. But still, she didn't deserve what she got.

Variety's reviewer wrote of the plot, "Constance Bennett is ruined again and has another baby" and "How the women love it, that sobbing stuff." Bennett's hand-wringing and heavy emoting was criticized, but I thought her acting was exactly how her character would respond to the shocks the script writers threw at her. Regardless, Variety saw the film's box-office potential, "Bennett isn't much of an actress here but still drawing as ever because of this story." Only a year after this huge hit, the drawing power of Bennett and stories like Born to Love would lose favor with fickle moviegoers, and she and her producers were unable to keep her career from sliding downhill until Topper reinvented her as a sophisticated comedienne.

This was Joel McCrea's first (of 4) teamings with Bennett as well as his first major role. He's wonderful to watch and Bennett's undying love for him is believable. Cavanaugh is excellent and manages to be sympathetic even while being cold-hearted and vengeful.

Yikes! Could a movie be any more depressing?

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 19 May 2012]

I really love Constance Bennett and Joel McCrea and their underrated talent and range, but this film was just one emotional blow after another to Bennett's character, Doris Kendall, a nurse in Great Britain during World War I, to the point where it got hard to continue watching. The film starts out on a rather fascinating note - Doris is practically hypnotized by the sight of a German dirigible in a rather strange "dogfight" with British planes over London. Down goes the dirigible in a pile of flames.

Joel McCrea's character, Captain Barry Craig, pulls Doris out of danger and sparks begin to fly. At the same time, Doris is nursing an English nobleman (Paul Cavanagh as Sir Wilfred Drake) back to health from his war wounds and he has fallen in love with her. Captain Craig and Doris throw convention to the wind and spend one night together and consummate their relationship before he has to ship out to France. Then one tragedy after another ensues, some due to misunderstandings, some due to natural occurrences, and some due to divorce law in England as it stood in the early twentieth century in which one of the parties had to be the bad guy in order for divorce to occur with legally punitive measures taken against the party that is deemed to be "at fault".

This movie may costar McCrea, but this is really Constance Bennett's film all the way. Frederick Kerr is particularly noteworthy as an older member of England's upper class that has a crusty exterior that hides a gooey center - he's quite sympathetic and kind to Doris. Louise Closser Hale plays his wife who also has a crusty exterior but has a heart of - well - crust. In spite of these differences in viewpoint these two older members of the cast play off one another quite well.

Recommended, but not if you're looking to be cheered up.

engrossing but heavy going pre-code melodrama

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 21 August 2005]

Constant Bennett is a beautiful Red Cross nurse and Joel McCrea her lover in "Born to Love." The story held my interest but it is truly a turgid melodrama with some very old-fashioned, over the top acting from Bennett.

Bennett and McCrea meet during World War I in London, fall in love, have sex; he leaves for battle and is later presumed dead. Pregnant, she marries Paul Cavanagh, Sir Wilfred Drake, who comes off like a nice guy at first. When McCrea turns up again, Bennett is determined to be loyal to her husband. But when he realizes she's seen McCrea and is still in love with him, the jig is up. In the divorce, Sir Wilfred gets full custody of the child. And here's where the going gets rough for the viewer, not to mention the characters! McCrea is adorable; Cavanagh is the type of leading man one doesn't see anymore. He comes off as very unattractive in this, though in his 32-year career, this often wasn't the case. As for Bennett, one has seen her to much better advantage. This is one of those creaky movies that's interesting from a precode and artifact point of view, but you can see these two stars in better films.

early chapter in the Bennett & McCrae talkies.

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 20 July 2017]

Another one of the early films made by Bennett and McCrae. Although SHE gets top billing in this one, since she had been working in silents for a few years already. McCrae looks so young, thin, and energetic, as this is one of his earlier, credited roles. It starts as soldier Barry (McCrae) meets nurse Doris (Bennett) during WW I in Britain. They hit it off... they have it off, and soldier Barry goes off to war. This was made just a few years before they enforced any "decency code", so things are made pretty clear without resorting to too much innuendo. The story starts out quite romantic, but it IS wartime, and when Barry is presumed dead, Doris marries another soldier (Paul Cavanagh). When Barry returns, the trouble begins, partly due to the complicated rules for divorce to be granted at the time. and did you SEE the dress Constance was wearing when she is called to the phone and finds out he is still alive?? wacky. Doris lives on her own after the divorce, and visits the baby, but won't move in with Barry. Then the film takes quite a left turn; Doris sees the baby is deceased, and goes over the edge. She heads home to find that Barry is there waiting for her, but certainly a bittersweet ending. Quite a shocker, right at the end of the story. On the plus side, she's back with her original love. According to wikipedia, director Paul Stein had been born in Austria, moved to Hollywood, and later became a Brit citizen in 1938. He also directed "Born to Love", which also shows now and then on TCM. It's pretty good, for an early talkie, but has its ups and downs. More interesting as an early work for McCrae and Bennett.

Melodramatic But Effective

[[e-mail] · 7/10 · 3 August 2005]

In BORN TO LOVE, Constance Bennett (Doris) and Joel McRea (Barry) are lovers who meet during the last weeks of the First World War. London is portrayed as a city in imminent danger of bombs from aircraft. They meet and predictably fall in love despite the chaos and confusion that surround them. There is an interesting scene in which they make love, one that is prudishly suggested off screen, yet one that in just a few years would have been banned by Hollywood as overtly salacious. The plot is the contrived package of Barry's reported death, forcing Doris to marry another. The second half of the film is less melodramatic and more of an acerbic commentary on the harshness of an English divorce system that allows a rich and titled husband to retain custody of a child over the wishes of a impecunious mother. There is an encoded ideology in the film that does not hide the fact that poor women who marry titled men can expect no mercy or kindness from a patriarchal legal system. BORN TO LOVE nevertheless carries the audience to a satisfying if not predictable conclusion of the need for true love to triumph over formidable societal obstacles.

An interesting, if overblown, pre-Code examination of the implications of fault divorce

[Michael-110 · 7 September 1999]

Born to Love (1931) is rather silly but nevertheless is a good example of a candid treatment of divorce law before the Production Code of 1935 put a stop to serious treatment of divorce or of pre-marital sexuality. Stuck in a loveless marriage to Wilfred, a haughty English aristocrat, Doris causes Wilfred to believe she has committed adultery. The consequences to her are catastrophic.

The plot is creaky and relies on numerous contrivances. The acting is highly forgettable. Nevertheless, the issues of fault-based divorce are important ones. The movie also concerns the conflict between marriage as an institution for love and fulfillment as opposed to a unemotional union designed for the mutual support of spouses and children. Needless to say, divorce law in the old days was much better adapted to the latter vision of marriage than the former.

Over-emotive waste of time

[donrogers42 · 2/10 · 7 August 2005]

I saw the last part of this on TCM; it was Joel McCrea day.

It didn't really fit -- this is Constance Bennett's movie, 100%, and that's the problem. This has to be one of the worst performances of her career. Even making allowances for 1931, she is very histrionic and melodramatic, in all the worst, most silent-movie-cliché ways.

Technically, Paul L. Stein's direction is fine (for 1931), but it appears from this he was not an "actor's director". Oddly, Ms. Bennett's next film, "The Common Law," re-teamed her with director Stein and costar McCrea. It is better; not memorable, but at least she isn't painfully bad in this one.

Connie emotes

[marcslope · 6/10 · 7 August 2017]

Not uninteresting pre-Code soap suds, wherein Yankee nurse Bennett, in London (nice historical touch: a bus advertising "Chu Chin Chow") meets Captain Joel McCrea, they have a torrid romance and pledge their troth, and while carrying his child she hears he's dead. We know he's not--he's second-billed, and there's an hour to go--but she thinks he is, so she marries Paul Cavanagh on the rebound and we wait for the fireworks that will erupt when McCrea returns. Connie's histrionic- -she gets to love, yell, sob, scream, and put on a phony British accent, even though she's playing American--and Paul Stein's camera likes to linger on her overemoting. But Joel McCrea was certainly the personification of solid masculine American values circa 1918 or 1931, and his sincere underplaying nicely complements her overplaying. The screenplay doesn't hate her for having a child out of wedlock, and the happy ending isn't that happy. So, by 1931 standards, it's an adult movie. Just not a very good one.

Making her respectable

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 16 March 2021]

The first of four films Constance Bennett did with Joel McCrea was one that you'd better bring the bath towels to the theater if you saw it. I'm sure even the men had a tear or two seeing what Connie went through.

An American nurse in London during World War I Bennett has American ace Joel McCrea and stiff upper lip British major Paul Cavanaugh after her. She loves McCrea and can't see Cavanaugh.

But when McCrea gets shot down and goes missing in action she's very pregnant and the sympathetic Cavanaugh is ready to marry her and make her respectable.

The usual complications ensue after that and Bennett pays a heavy price for her romances.

Born To Love fits rater neatly into that category called women's pictures. Women who worried where the next meal might come from, plunked don their nickel and could sympathize with a woman like Bennett and her complicated romantic life.

For this type the film is OK, but I doubt we'll see a remake in this century.

Challenging Photography

[JackBluegrass · 7/10 · 22 January 2018]

This high-power weeper is notable for its photography. Made shortly after sound arrived in movies, Born to Love has some interesting images courtesy of cinematographer John Mescall. Rapid pullbacks and moving close-ups often look like the camera was mounted on a square-wheeled dolly.

When done at a less frantic pace, they're much smoother and easier on our eyes. Mescall's stationary camera images of London's celebration at the end of World War One , complete with an example of his tilted camera style, are the best images in the movie.

Film buffs of pre-code talkies will get something out of this very dreary story.

When war is over, does life really begin again?

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 19 November 2023]

Pre-code queen Constance Bennett looks great in her nurse's uniform, over in London when she falls in love with Joel McCrea. Their romance leads to her becoming an expectant mother and marry the wealthy English nobleman Paul Cavanaugh who's willing to raise another man's child as his own. But then as circumstances always has it happen, McCrea comes back from the dead, leading to pure torture for queen of misery Constance. Cavanaugh is so saint like until he goes for custody after McCrea comes back that he should have a halo floating over him. Rather inconsistent in character development.

A silly melodrama that is completely unbelievable in the sense that Cavanaugh accepts Bennett's pregnancy of another man as if he was not at all jealous of it, and the continued twists just get more ridiculous. But it's a good looking film, only suffering a little by technology of the time that would shortly afterwards improve. That this was an original story seems implausible because it's set up like a stage play. Definitely of its time, rather slow moving and actionless outside of the big scene where the end of the war is declared. Bennett ends up being the whole show as McCrea is bland and Cavanaugh horribly written for.

This melodrama offered a few unexpected surprises.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 23 July 2017]

During WWI, an American nurse, Doris (Constance Bennett) meets up with an American serviceman, Barry (Joel McCrea) and soon the pair are in love. Since this is a pre-code picture*, the pair apparently slept together before he shipped out for France...with the promise to marry her when he returned. However, she soon receives word that Barry has been killed...and she is pregnant. The ardent suitor, Sir Wilfred, still wants to marry her despite this and so she agrees. No one is apparently the wiser that the baby was not his other than Sir Wilfred and his new bride...and things appear very happy. However, when Barry returns and it's obvious he was not killed in action but only injured, Doris has some tough choices...as does Sir Wilfred. Unfortunately, Sir Wilfred does NOT rise to the occasion. What exactly happens? Well, see the film and be prepared for a few surprises.

What I appreciated about this film is that it took a somewhat familiar story idea and cast all sorts of unexpected events as well. The story is NOT one you'll be predicting long before things occur. Additionally, for a 1932 film the acting is quite nice. Well worth your time.

*In films released after July, 1934, this story would have either not been filmed at all or would have been heavily edited due to the premarital sex in the plot. Such things were pretty much taboo in the post-code era...a time period during which Hollywood began making more wholesome and less sordid movies. And, while I love the pre-code films, as they are very entertaining, some of the films did get a bit too racy considering that there was no rating system and anyone could have been in the audiences to see topless girls in "Ben Hur" (1925), lechrous bosses who refused to keep their hands off the women at work ("Employees Entrance") and women who sleep their way to the top...and somehow remain there by the end of the story ("Red-Headed Woman"). I don't think this film really has anything offensive at all about in it...but a few pre-code films did seem to really push the envelope!

Wonderful old melodrama with gorgeous Constance Bennett and Joel McCrea

[trpdean · 8/10 · 22 October 2020]

I write only to mention that there are some reviewers who take this movie as criticism of former divorce laws. The law on divorce and custody at that time is very similar to the present.

One must remember that the husband played by Paul Cavanagh is the legally adoptive father of the child. the other reviewers seem to forget this! This gives him the same rights as a natural parent.

It is this fact - and that his wife wishes to move the child thousands and thousands of miles away from the father - not the fact that his wife bore the child out of wedlock or is the cause of the divorce - that would then and now persuade the court to grant the father custody of the child.

For decades in the middle of the 20th century, this presumption shifted so that mothers always gained custody of children if they sought it.

That is not the case now. There is no longer a presumption in favor of the mother - and if she wishes to make the child wholly unavailable by moving to another country - she's likely to lose custody.

A child with two parents (adoptive or natural) born and living in a foreign country is VERY unlikely to be awarded to a divorcing mother who wishes to move the child thousands of miles away - unless there is something seriously wrong with the father as a parent.

In this case, the father adores the child, treats the baby tenderly, has an enormous fortune to take care of the child, as well as his own doting parents who wish the child to remain. Finally, the child is born in the U.K.

The court would not likely prefer the mother to the father. The laws of divorce and custody are not identical now to 1931 - but in this custodial matter, they have a similar result as in 1931.