"Oh, that's Victorian bunk. You're even out of touch with your own sex, Jimmie."
There are some really nice elements in this film, starting with the power trio of Myrna Loy, Ann Harding, and Alice Brady (Brady especially!), and including some open questioning of conventional morality. Unfortunately, the film's also got Frank Morgan who is woefully miscast, Robert Montgomery as a smarmy guy mansplaining things to his friend when he isn't hitting on her, and a feel-good, unsatisfying resolution that ultimately doesn't really challenge anything, despite giving us a few cathartic moments.
My favorite character here was Bridgie (Brady), who early on questions why women shouldn't take lovers, even married men if they'd like:
"Well after all, why control yourself? Nobody else does. I know I'm a fool being so decent about Walter. Everybody else does exactly as they please, so why shouldn't I? But I don't. And the funny thing is that I actually don't know whether it's because I'm too good, or I, I haven't got the nerve.... I tell you, this is an awfully hard age for a good woman to live in. I mean, a woman who wants to have any fun. The old instincts of right and wrong merely hold you back."
She's consoling her author friend (Loy), you see, because the latter is carrying on an affair with her publisher (Morgan), who is married with children (Harding plays the wife). The author is naïve about two things, (1) that the publisher truly loves her, and (2) that if she just talks to the wife rationally about the situation, they can come to an amicable agreement. She also happens to be writing a book about the same subject, one that her friend (Montgomery) says doesn't ring true. He tells her how a "decent" woman shouldn't give in to a man's physical advances in the first place, because he'll get bored of her afterwards. "Gosh, I've persuaded so many women and hated them afterwards," he says crudely while thinking about swatting her behind with a daffodil (ugh). He also happens to have feelings for her that are unreciprocated, so naturally schemes to break up her affair.
One of the issues with the film is that Morgan and Loy make an odd pairing, as aside from the 15 year age gap between the two, they don't have chemistry together. Morgan is simply miscast, as when Harding's character describes him as "a man who can no more help attracting other women than he can help breathing," I mean, please.
Another problem is where the film goes once all of these characters inevitably meet. Harding does have some fine moments describing how she's coped with the serial adultery her husband has committed over their marriage, which was poignant, but it was also irritating that this intelligent woman, who thinks at times she has to pretend she isn't as talented as he is for the sake of his ego (like at golf), stood by him for years. She speaks emotionally and takes a swipe at not only male wandering but also the "ghastly" institution of marriage: "You can't hope to hold him with just yourself. I don't care how beautiful or clever or wonderful you are, he has to have something in him that will make him stick. Nothing else can pull a man and a woman through the ghastly job of living together."
She also tells the author that if she knew the mistress, "I'd loathe her with a deadly hate that would shrivel her up. I'd call her a vile, brazen..." which was certainly an honest moment. Her feelings don't last long, however, leading to a calm scene between the two women when the truth is out that feels as false as the book Loy's character is writing. We get that beautiful moment when she leaves her husband, fed up with him at last, but there is also the sense that he's learned something and will patch things up for the sake of the children, meanwhile, whaddya know, Loy is now amused by Montgomery, and will probably end up together with him too. It's far too tame and nice, if you ask me, just giving a married man carrying on an affair some temporary comeuppance, and an education to a "modern woman" who naively thought free love could be so easy, thus delivering a dose of traditional morality after all.
I still liked it for its amusing moments, however. You get a cameo from an uncredited Sterling Holloway as a sassy caddy with hay fever, for one thing. Frank Morgan impersonates a horse, and apparently has a foot fetish, as we come to know that long ago he complimented his wife's feet, and also admires Myrna Loy's (to which she says is an "odd compliment, I like it"). You also get many delightful moments from Alice Brady, including these quotes:
"You know, you can't get men to come out to the country and stay there. Of course, I could fill the house full of women easily, but oh my goodness, I'm so sick of females."
"Don't be an ass, Walter"
(woken up at 2am) "What's the matter with you people? Don't you know what beds are for? Or do you? (implying they've slept together) Or is that the wrong thing to say?"
"Well I'm going back to bed, come along Walter," then breaking the 4th wall and telling the audience "Oh, I didn't mean that!" and giggles before leaving. She was such a pistol.
