I Take This Woman (1931) User Reviews (15)

Two drifters find each other in this early talkie drama

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 27 May 2018]

Lots of people may watch this and believe it is about two people from different worlds finding each other and the problems they encounter when the honeymoon is over. I think it is more than that.

The story starts with wealthy beautiful slacker heiress Kay Dowling (Carole Lombard) being seen in a public place with a married man (Oh the horror!). The wife is threatening divorce and naming Kay as co-respondent. Kay says big deal, but dad says she needs to either marry her forever fiancé or go out west to dad's ranch in Wyoming until things simmer down or he will disinherit her. So off she goes to the ranch - you get the feeling that forever fiancé is putting her feet to sleep. While out west she meets cow hand Tom McNair (Gary Cooper). He makes her feel foolish a couple of times - like a city slicker which is what she is, and so she decides to make him feel foolish by getting him to fall in love with her. It works, but she falls in love too. They hastily marry, but Kay finds she is quickly not only a fish out of water, but on another planet.

Her wedding gift from Tom's fellow cowhands is a stuffed deer head. Tom can't stay on as a cow hand and just sleep in the bunkhouse, so he gets a run down one room cabin as a house for the two, and begins ranching. All the money has to go to the cattle, so there are no extras. But worse, there is the horrible isolation of the Wyoming winters. When she arrived, Kay was there during the three months out of the year they have good weather. She wants to pack it in and go back home, but a neighbor lady in whom she confides says industry does not come easy to Tom, and that unless he has somebody besides himself to work for, he will just walk away from his ranch and go back to being a cowpoke.

So it turns out these two have more in common than you would first think - they are both drifting through life in their own way unless something bigger than themselves wills them forward. How does this turn out? Watch and find out.

Lombard and Cooper gave great rather understated performances. They were quite good at expressing a range of emotions without a great deal of dialogue. The one real question mark in the cast is the part of Kay's dad. He never seems to step out from behind his desk, never has a tender word for his daughter though she is his only child, and seems to only care that she is not a headline with no thought to her happiness.

I'd definitely recommend it as one of the better made and acted early talkies.

Co-Depedence

[boblipton · 6/10 · 1 June 2018]

Scandalous Carole Lombard is hustled out west to the family ranch to avoid another scandal in New York. Ranch hand Gary Cooper's contemptuous indifference to her incites her to make him fall in love with her. Trouble is, she falls in love with him, and marries him, which gets her disowned. Such is the sexual heat that she doesn't care, until a hard year of deprivation getting his ranch started sends her back to a life of luxury in New York, asking for a divorce by letter.

I looked for signs of Soviet class struggle in Marion Gehring's first movie for Paramount, from a novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart and with Slavko Vorkapich as "associate director" -- I guess he was doing his usual amazing montage work on this. I didn't find it, but a story of co-dependence, two individuals, neither of whom can do anything worthwhile alone, but together can accomplish something, set in that glossy Paramount world in which of course they fall in love, because they're beautiful. They're also pretty good at not understanding what it is they mean to each other until it's explained to them. Gehring got good performances out of them, just as he later would out Sylvia Sidney.

In many ways, this movie reminds me of Warner Brother's THE PURCHASE PRICE the following year, which I think is a superior movie. Perhaps that is because in this movie, the leads' love turns out to be much more selfish. I suppose that's a case of Your Mileage May Vary. Certainly, Stanywyck is at least as good an actress as Lombard is and Cooper is better than Brent in the other movie.

Carole and Gary in their salad years

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 13 April 2018]

The presence of two screen legends, Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard, starring in I Take This Woman make this film one earmarked for preservation and fortunately it was not lost to us. They did two films for Paramount, the later one is Now And Forever and also starred Shirley Temple. Because of Shirley it's far better known and the two stars were slightly better served.

Carole Lombard is a notorious heiress and flirt who keeps winding up on what would have been page 6 back in the day of the tabloids. No doubt Walter Winchell has written numerous columns on her various escapades and it's decided by both her father and Charles Trowbridge and ever available suitor Lester Vail that she should marry or take time at the family ranch out in the west. As Vail is earnest but dull, Lombard takes the ranch.

Where she sees something new she likes, lean and lanky cowboy Gary Cooper. She marries him for spite and dear old dad disinherits. Soon she's living on his small spread.

I don't think that I have to go any further. Anyone who has seen a gazillion films from the studio era like I have can predict this one. In fact a lot of the same story Gary Cooper did with Merle Oberon for Sam Goldwyn in The Cowboy And The Lady. Maybe this one should have had a lighter touch like the other film.

Both stars are cast quite comfortably in roles that fit them. Other than their presence there's not all that much to recommend I Take This Woman. Both were capable of and did better.

Still I'm glad this film was rescued and restored.

Can a spoiled brat make a good wife?

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 7 April 2018]

Kay Dowling (Carole Lombard) is a very spoiled brat. Because her family is rich, she doesn't take life very seriously and occasionally gets herself into trouble...and knows they'll bail her out of whatever predicament she gets herself into from time to time. While her father talks tough and convinces her to go out west to find herself, he and the rest of them are enablers and as a result Kay is a very weak person.

Out west, she inexplicably falls for a poor ranch hand, Tom (Gary Cooper). Very impulsively (how else would Kay do ANYTHING??), she marries him and they are dirt poor, living in a cabin on a desolate ranch. Not surprisingly, she soon tires of it and goes running back to her parents. What's next?

In many ways, this is less a traditional film and more a morality tale. But it fortunately does not come off as heavy-handed and is well acted. Not a great film but a good one worth seeing.

Can a drifter really tame a shrew?

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 12 April 2018]

The 1938 screwball comedy "The Cowboy and the Lady" starring Gary Cooper and Merle Oberon is a light-hearted version of the plot of this earlier Gary Cooper film where the pretty Carole Lombard takes on the socialite role. Unlike Oberon's ladylike but decent socialite, Lombard is a spoiled brat, banished to her wealthy father's country ranch as an attempt to prevent her from marrying a man her father highly disapproves of. Lombard insults Cooper, is insulted right back, and after threatening to have him fired suddenly changes her mind. She is bent on revenge, determined to get him to fall in love with her, then dump him like a hot branding iron. But before long, Lombard herself has fallen for him and out of the blue the two are married, causing her father to disown her. Life as a cowhand's wife is worse than she expected, and when she gets a telegram from her feisty aunt (Helen Ware), she decides to go back to visit her father with the intention of divorcing Cooper. But he shows up, takes on the high society snobbery he's faced with, and that re-opens her eyes to the fact that she can't live without him. How to get him back, though, as he seems to have had enough of her tomfoolery, as any wise man would after being abused by her kind of classless high class.

There's the potential for some great comedy and romantic drama here, but it's unfortunately a mixed bag due to the film's jumping all over the place in the way it tells its story. When she's struggling to try and face the hard winters and objects to him bringing in a motherless baby calf, you just want Cooper to put her over his knee and spank her, and when neighbor Clara Blandick warns her that leaving Cooper would be akin to destroying any direction he's learned to take in his life, you want Blandick to shake her. Charles Trowbridge, as Lombard's pompous father, is also a pretty one dimensional character, so while it's easy to see how Lombard's character ended up the way she did, the family dynamics aren't entirely realistic. At least with Oberon's deception about being a maid in "The Cowboy & the Lady", you rooted for her. Here, I wanted Cooper to just dump Lombard forever so she could marry her wealthy suitor (Lester Vail) and end up completely miserable. I usually love Lombard in everything (1937's "True Confessions", a film about a pathological liar being another exception), but had no sympathy for her, so it was hard to root for a happy ending.

Gary Cooper can't act

[Single-Black-Male · 4 May 2004]

The ninety minutes that I spent watching the 30 year old Gary Cooper deliver a performance that was as interesting as watching paint dry could have been used more productively in other ventures. The sum total of his emotional depth is to play with his ears when he is told something serious or profound by one of his colleagues. His stock retort is 'yar', 'hmm' and 'okay'. There is nothing fresh or inspired in his delivery. It is as though he feels the need to say something to avoid awkward silences rather than responding with the required character nuances that any human being has to face when they are presented with unfamiliarity. The guy can't act for peanuts.

Only diehard Cooper and Lombard fans should watch

[ClaudetteColbertFan · 6/10 · 3 November 2018]

Because of the two leads, I had to watch this film. Boy was I disappointed. Many awkward silences in this early talkie. Had this been made a decade later with both leads, I imagine it would have been better made since both made better films later in their careers.

3D ideas, 2D realization

[I_Ailurophile · 5/10 · 29 March 2022]

Is it the source material, Mary Roberts Rinehart's novel? Is it Vincent Lawrence's adapted screenplay? Is it the direction of Marion Gering, making his film debut? Or is it some combination thereof that makes 'I take this woman' come across with a bare-faced plainspokenness that flattens nearly any sense of drama or humor? The plot progresses with the simple-minded curtness of a twelve-year old's first fan-fiction: "This happened. And then this happened. This happens next." It's one matter to decline embellishments in storytelling and film-making; it's another to be so straightforward that cuts to shots of a calendar are an exciting change of pace. None of this necessarily means the feature is entirely without value, but the movie-going experience is all but reduced to a level of receiving a gift with the price tag still on, discovering a puzzle that's already solved, AND being told every turn in a narrative the moment you buy a book. If you can appreciate the sometimes more modest entertainment of older films, and are the sort of person who can enjoy stories even after they've been spoiled for you - well, this is far from essential, but 'I take this woman' is an okay watch if you happen across it.

The core concepts of the writing are fine, the cast is strong - and give suitable performances, despite the subdued constraints of the title - and Gering's direction is technically capable. I think the plot is rather engaging, at face value, even if it bears very familiar themes of "growing up," and "finding oneself," and so on. I admire the production design, costume design, hair and makeup, and even the editing. Not to somewhat return to an aforementioned notion, but if this picture were a jigsaw puzzle, then all the requisite pieces are here, sure enough. Somehow, however - somewhere in the mix, that puzzle got flipped, so instead of a fetching, vibrant image, what we see before is the brownish-grey cardboard backing.

True, at some uncertain point about halfway through this issue lessens, and 'I take this woman' becomes a little more actively compelling. It's a problem that never feels fully resolved, though, even at the climactic peak of the interpersonal quagmire, and the ending seems uncharacteristically rushed and untidy. And that pervasive directness is adjoined by another glaring matter that rears its head from the very start: this is distinctly sexist. And it didn't have to be. Lead female character Kay Dowling (Carole Lombard) is overly brash and strong-headed, sure, but that irascible willfulness marks her as an independent, liberated woman. Yet these admirable qualities are practically taboo in 1930s cinema, so of course the feature focuses heavily on the notion that she must be "tamed" and "domesticated"; a revealing line of dialogue from male lead Tom McNair (Gary Cooper) even likens Kay to an animal that must be broken. Why, the title alone - "I take this woman" - connotes in one breath traditional vows of marriage, and the notion that a woman is a mere thing to be possessed, and emphatically centers the male perspective.

Sigh.

There are good ideas here. There really are. I had mixed expectations but high hopes as I began watching, especially with Lombard and Cooper involved; their reputations alone say much. Yet the strength that exists in the fundamental elements of the picture very much face off against the way they are all brought together, and it's quite a one-sided bout. You could do a lot worse, no matter what era of film your comparison is - but you could also do a whole lot better. If you can't get enough of the stars or movies of the 30s, then I suppose there's a particular reason to watch this. Otherwise, 'I take this woman' is best considered for when you want to sit for a movie without needing to be wholly invested.

A FORGOTTEN CLASSIC WITH BOTH STARS AT THEIR VERY PEAK

[bensonj · 9/10 · 30 May 2004]

Lombard is rich, spoiled heiress, and dad is really mad about her latest escapades. He demands that she go out west to their ranch or be disinherited. Her boyfriend suggests an alternative: they could get married and sail for Europe. Which will it be? Unhesitatingly, she chooses the ranch! These scenes are lightly played; will this be an "heiress and the cowboy" romantic comedy? No; it's something more than that! When she arrives at the western station, it becomes an altogether more subtle, more serious, far more interesting film. The man to meet her isn't there, and she impatiently honks the car horn. (There's a kid in the next parked car, and he thinks this is grand fun, honking the fancy horn on his own car.) When Cooper shows up, he ignores Lombard of course, but it's not done with standard "writers' business." Cooper piles into the front seat with another girl, and the two have an inconsequential conversation about shopping. (The girl is not seen again.) The next day, when the boss picks a man to show Lombard around, she surreptitiously fingers Cooper. And when he makes her look foolish, she first goes to the foreman to have him fired, but abruptly changes her mind: "No, it was my fault." The question the hands ask each other is, is she like her dad, or is she like her granddad, the grand old man they admired. They think maybe the latter. She tells her city companion that she's decided to make Cooper fall in love with her before they leave. This situation has been played out a thousand times in films and light fiction before and after this film was made, but never as simply and starkly as here. All of that "writers' business" is just canned and the scenes are pared down to the simplest, briefest moments. When the time comes for her to reveal her trick, the scene is short and elliptical. He starts leading up to ask her to marry him. She laughs, turns and steps away. From this he instantly understands the whole situation, and his one simple line of dialogue shows what he thinks of the trick. So she's going back east, and at the train she tells him, "I'm running away from you, but I won't forget you for a long time to come." Then at the last minute she gets off the train. And they get married. The heiress living in a one-room shack on a cattle farm in the middle of nowhere through a midwest winter; what are the odds of any realism? Against all odds, this film again comes through. Lombard is superb. She hates it but she bears it, she doesn't take it out on him. Her sense of fair play, of realizing his needs, of understanding that this is exactly what she signed up for, is so well articulated that, although it's obvious that she's having a tough time, still, when she pours out to a neighbor woman her utter feeling of desolation and her plan to leave as soon as possible and never come back, it comes a shock how deeply she feels it. She sees him through the winter, but then skips out, leaving him a letter. Back east, the film still doesn't falter. Her old boy friend asks, "Would you still marry me?" and she answers with a heartfelt yes. Then, in the same sincere and friendly tones, as only Lombard could, she says, "Tell me why I don't love you..." When Cooper shows up, he's never made to look foolish by the society folks, because he can't be made to look foolish. In fact, he has a good scene with the boy friend, where he effectively tells him to buzz off. OK, so the very end (which I won't detail here) isn't perfect; it's not exactly a letdown either.

An extraordinary film! Basically, it's an impossible story, but the singular way it's handled, from the directing, to the great spare, lean script, to, especially, the performances of the two leads, make it exceptional. The dialogue between the two throughout the film is so laconic, so simple; it pares away everything but what's absolutely necessary. Yet never does anyone avoid saying what he or she thinks. Cooper was a star presence but not yet an actor in WINGS and THE VIRGINIAN. Here he's learned the art so well that this is one of the best roles of his career!

And Lombard in these early "serious" roles is so much more interesting than her comedy turns. What's great and unique about Lombard is her obvious intelligence and maturity. Everything her characters do is thoughtful, even when her emotions are in play, but never intellectualized. She is never "feminine" in the way of other players of intelligent women from the period such as Claudette Colbert. I respond to her as a modest and unassuming person with great maturity and character. Someone you'd really like to know very well.

Apparently, this became an "orphan" film when the rights reverted to author Mary Roberts Rinehart. The original negative and all supporting material was shipped back to her but she had no interest in it and it all disintegrated, except for one 16 mm acetate print, from which it has been restored. How incredible that such a major film might have been lost! And what other treasures are there still to be found from the pre-Code Parmount era?

It a good movie

[apacholek · 6/10 · 24 December 2021]

It has two-star legends, Gray Cooper and Carole Lombard. The movie starts interesting, a woman who is kinda a player that marries a cowboy who is a dedicated person. The characters have some personalities but over roll they are dull. The movie is enjoyable but not to extend to say it's a masterpiece. It does have delightful moments that are would grab your attention. In the middle of the movie, it feels like it's going off tracks and it is more cécha and unnatural as we go. Near the end of the movie, it got the pace back but it was a drag of the ending.

The annoying thing about this is a movie the camera angles and the script, the are some moments you wish they would add more words to energies the movie.

But overall I think it was a good movie to watch. I do recommend to watch it at least once.

I Take This Woman - You Can Have Her!

[julieapruitt · 1/10 · 14 January 2018]

Just because a film is old and has two up-an-coming Hollywood legends, doesn't mean it's a good classic film.

I had high expectations when I sat down to watch "I Take This Woman" (1931) -- it didn't take long into the film to see that my expectations would not be met.

Firstly, the script is so poorly written that the actors didn't have a chance at acting. It appears that even they were pained to speak such melodramatic dribble. The lines are so short and choppy that they make the actors appear robotic and one-dimensional.

The legendary Carole Lombard and Gary Cooper are certainly young and attractive in the film, but obviously neither had found his or her famous stride yet -- Lombard's comedic genius, and Cooper's boy-howdy charm.

I realize that this film was made in the early years of cinema, but the camera shots are terrible -- "Walk in front of the camera, please -- it's a take." In the scene at the circus, it's obvious that the "crowds" are painted back drops, kept in the dark, but still obvious.

The sappy storyline almost borders on comedy because it's so clumsily contrived. Here's the formula: Rich, spoiled girl + handsome ranch hand (he's beneath her station, of course) + marriage + conflict + convoluted tragic circumstances = happily ever after. It's that simple and flat. (Incidentally, Cooper would appear in a similar film in 1938, "The Lady and the Cowboy" -- a much more palatable film.)

This film has the overall presentation of a B movie (make that a D). It surprises me that the two stars went any further in their careers after this stinker. I usually enjoy watching Lombard and Cooper, but this one hurt to behold.

Cowboy Vs. Playgirl - Much Better than You Expect

[jayraskin1 · 10/10 · 28 December 2017]

Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard are magic together. It is hard to tell if they are acting or just carrying on an off-screen romance on-screen.

At the beginning of the movie, socialite, playgirl Carol sashays over to her straight-laced aristocratic father, bends over and says, "Spank me, good daddy, I need it." You know immediately we are in a pre-code film.

Cooper plays a slow talking cowboy who doesn't think she's anything special. He tells her that all women are a disappointment to him. She's angry that he's not falling at her feet and drooling. She explains her plan explicitly to get him to fall in love with her. When the plan ends, she finds that she's succeeded, but she laments that she has also trapped herself. They're in love. That's the first twenty minutes of the movie, then it really gets interesting, as the movie explores the problems of love between two people from two different social and class backgrounds.

"Overboard" did it Better

[view_and_review · 2/10 · 30 August 2022]

It seems to me that romances were terrible in every era. And since I'm expressing an unpopular opinion--Gary Cooper sucked.

A free-spirited, spoiled, rich, society girl named Kay Dowling (Carole Lombard) was sent west to "the ranch" for a little reformation after she embarrassed her father by dating a married man. While on the Wyoming ranch she decided to have a little fun. She would make cow hand Tom McNair (Gary Cooper) fall in love with her before she left.

What do you think happened? If you said that she fell in love as well then you'd be correct. I know it was an easy guess, afterall she was a woman and it was the 1930's, so what was a woman doing if she wasn't falling in love? The hardest, coldest, most married of women fell in love.

*See "It Pays to Advertise," "Girls About Town," "Waterloo Bridge," "Working Girls," "The Big Gamble," "Lady Refuses," or "Men of Chance" for an example.

Kay forsook her cushy lifestyle to be a cow hand's wife. She lasted a full year before she ran off. Understandably, Kay found it near impossible to go from high society living to scrubbing and cleaning a log cabin.

In the end she went back to Tom because "romance." But if we were to be honest, it's because she was an impetuous, flighty young woman who didn't know what she wanted. The implication at the end was that she was ready to make ranch living work. If the movie continued another ten minutes we'd probably see her another year later bailing on Tom again because ranch living wasn't for her.

"I Take This Woman" was a basic, dumbed down, unimaginative movie about the spoiled rich girl having to live a simple working class life. "Overboard" would do a much better job of the the same thing decades later.

Free on YouTube.

A Must For Cooper and Lombard Fans

[januszlvii · 10/10 · 30 August 2020]

I have said it before and I will say it again, there is no such thing as a mediocre ( let alone bad) Gary Cooper western. I Take This Woman, which is a modern day (1931) Western falls into the excellent category, and it was available on Roku ( I noticed it got taken off the next day ( obviously someone at Universal ( who owns the rights to Pre 1946 Paramount films was not happy)). I can tell you I was not the least bit disappointed in it, and I have been wanting to see it for decades. It is about spoiled heiress Kay Dowling ( Carole Lombard), who marries cowhand Tom McNair ( Cooper), and their life together. Lombard does not play the nicest character in Kay, but she is basically unloved by her father who wants her to marry someone she does not love so you understand why she is the way she is. Cooper ( by far) is the stronger character, he has a plan to make a life for him and Kay but it requires sacrifice ( something that Kay does not want to do and instead goes back to her prior life in New York). He goes after her but finally gives up, and will grant her a divorce (on the grounds of abandonment) to save her from embarrassment. He loved her that much that he was willing to take the blame for the marriage failing. Spoilers ahead: She then goes to see him in the rodeo and sees him get injured when thrown off a horse. She is finally able to convince him that she loves him and is happier being poor at the ranch then wealthy in New York. Finally, I read comments from a poster asking why Tom took her back? The reasons are 1: He loved her unconditionally. 2: Kay finally grew up, and became willing to make sacrifices such as giving up her previous lifestyle ( her father cut her off when she married Tom) . Character growth is always good in a story. Last but certainly not least, I know there are a lot of comparisons to a later Cooper film ( The Cowboy and the Lady with Merle Oberon), but this is a much different film. There the father Horace Smith of Mary Smith ( Oberon) loves his daughter ( and sacrifices a chance to be President for Mary's happiness), unlike Mr. Dowling here who rarely even gets out of his chair. It is also a comedy while this is a drama, and this is a much better movie. I am really happy that Cooper pre-code westerns are finally becoming available ( I just need to see Wolf Song and The Spoilers to finish the entire Cooper list ( Arizona Bound sad to say is lost)). Easy 10/10 stars and a must for Cooper and ( or) Lombard fans.

"I Take this Woman" (1931) is an Early Talkie to Savor

[glennstenb · 9/10 · 21 January 2020]

"I Take This Woman" is wonderfully satisfying for fans of early talking pictures, as the story is well developed, production values are excellent, we have a movie star in the female lead and a developing movie star in the male lead, and the acting is natural, compelling, and with lots of facially-revealed communication. Not only do we get to see Gary Cooper in an early starring role perfecting the aura that he later came to exemplify, we also get to see Carole Lombard play her comfortable persona of society girl extraordinaire as well as witnessing her in a contrasting role of a girl living a totally different life, one of tolerating a life in the sparest of conditions in an environment harsh beyond what she could ever have imagined.

Additionally, we have the contrasting locales, with the highest-end NY social stratum, including the finest society dances and living conditions on the one hand, and the dusty Wyoming old West style life with cows, horses, barns, bunkhouses, and cabins on the other. Wintry Wyoming conditions are brutally and drearily portrayed. We even see Circus life depicted, as well as several train scenes, including a remarkable and clever one to wrap the picture up. Ms. Lombard had such an expressive face, and she uses her body to portray feelings very well, too. And Mr. Cooper... talk about lanky. He was also a gifted actor, using his expressions to perfection. The kissing of this pair of stars was realistically and erotically passionate, too. They apparently had a lot of fun together on this one! This picture should not be missed.