Always a Bride (1940) User Reviews (9)

Disappointing!

[JohnHowardReid · 5/10 · 2 March 2018]

SYNOPSIS: A small town ne'er-do-well hopes to win the girl of his choice by running for office as town mayor.

NOTES: The stage play opened on Broadway at the Ambassador on 28 September 1925 and ran a very satisfactory 90 performances. Alan Dinehart both starred as the small-town backslapper and directed. Walter Connolly and Gladys Lloyd were also in the cast. Richard Herndon produced. Warner Brothers purchased the film rights and made the first version in 1936 under the title, Brides Are Like That. Ross Alexander, Anita Louise and Gene Lockhart starred.

COMMENT: The story of this film has hardly any affinity with its title. The plot mainly centers on the hero (George Reeves) winning the mayoral race against the firmly entrenched incumbent (Ferris Taylor). The fact that he will also win the girl (the lovely Rosemary Lane) seems almost incidental, as he is also keen to put down the town blowhard (John Eldredge), especially as that particular loudmouth has marriage designs on Miss Lane.

The plot holds promise but unfortunately it is not realized, despite valiant efforts by Miss Lane and Mr Reeves. Oddly, it's the support cast that lets the side down, due both to miscasting (Francis Pierlot is right outside his range as the heroine's dad) and to Noel Smith's dull, listless, uninvolved direction. Another problem lies with a far too talkative screenplay that often gives the impression of a filmed stage play. Thank you, prolific Poverty Row writer Robert E. Kent (who churned out so much stuff he sometimes used the pseudonym, James B. Gordon).

Sad to say, photography and other credits are equally uninspired. Production values rate no more than average for a "B" feature. Perhaps slightly less.

Lightweight

[boblipton · 6/10 · 1 July 2023]

Rosemary Lane has two suitors. John Eldredge is a successful businessman who can give her everything she wants. George Reeves is a lazy good-for-nothing with a smile and a good word for everyone. Naturally, Eldredge doesn't stand a chance. But Miss Lane's parents are adamant: Reeves must gt a job to support her. So he runs for mayor of their small city as the candidate of the phony reform party; everyone figures he won't stand a chance against the well-oiled machine.

This pleasant lightweight comedy is based on a stage play by Barry Conners and has the air of something that had been hanging around since the 1920s. Fortunately it has a similarly lightweight director in Noel Smith, and the result is a fluffy bit of nonsense that looks like everyone else passed on the roles, and it still turned out amusing.

fake niceness

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 1 July 2023]

Alice Bond (Rosemary Lane) is expected to marry rich local Marshall Winkler (John Eldredge). Instead, she likes Michael Stevens (George Reeves), but he has no prospects. He turned down a tax appraiser job due to his dislike of Mayor Loomis.

Wow! Michael annoyed me. Marshall is right about him. All that flattery and false happiness is really off-putting. There is a big difference between him and someone like Ned Flanders. Michael is faking it and it shows. The future Superman has his tall stature and good looks. At some point, the fake happiness does go completely overboard into ridiculousness and that's a little funny. As for Alice, I don't really like her. I'm not too invested in this coupling or this movie.

Not much of a movie

[jimjo1216 · 16 May 2014]

ALWAYS A BRIDE (1940) stars Rosemary Lane, a couple years removed from her late-1930s musical successes with her sisters, and a little-known George Reeves, early in his Hollywood career and a decade before he'd become famous as television's Superman. They're surrounded by a cast of D-list actors in this third-rate production.

The story is weak and the ending, coming only an hour into the film, caught me off-guard. I was expecting the story to continue a little further and was surprised to see it "conclude" where it did. The film feels more like an episode of a television (or radio) series. It's a short story, not a novel. Not quite enough material for a feature-length movie.

Reeves is charming, though, as a sweet-talking idler who first must win back his sweetheart and then finds himself in the middle of a mayoral race.

Rosemary Lane didn't have the kind of Hollywood success that her sister Priscilla enjoyed, but she's always been a personal favorite of mine. Her movie career didn't go very far without her sisters and I would've liked to see her in more (and better) films.

ALWAYS A BRIDE is pretty inconsequential. A cheap quickie with the minimum allowable entertainment value, buoyed only by George Reeves's charm. The movie is really only of interest to fans of Reeves or Lane.

She needs to find a different groom.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 3 December 2020]

One bride to be, two suitors, both impossible. She's Rosemary Lane, a feisty if fickle only child, in love with the unambitious George Reeves but engaged to the pretentious John Eldredge, rich but stuffy. Reeves decides to play a little game on them, pretending to be eternally cheerful even though he's been dumped. Reeves goes around town flattering everybody including Eldredge who falls for it, catches himself and schemes to get Lane back. She should be on the first bus out of their stuffy little town and leave dust in their faces.

The saving grace of this ridiculous remake of "Brides Are Like That" (itself based on a forgotten Broadway play) I'd diminutive character actor Francis Pierlot as Lane's hot headed father who is actually quite gullible. He scores in a brief dance sequence where he jitterbugs with Reeves' dance partner. Virginia Brissac is his more sensible wife, upset by the sight of him dancing with some young chippy while she colldcts sandwiches.

This has plenty of amusing moments, but the male leads (Reeves especially) are easy to dislike. Reeves isn't just unlikable here. He's ridiculously over the top and hard to watch, a far cry from "Superman" on TV. Eldredge is just another stereotypical square, the type that only a golddigger could claim to love. This takes political twists later in the film but it's not enough to raise this above desperation for Warner Brothers to fill out its B unit.

Entertaining hour!

[arabrab-somar · 7/10 · 1 February 2014]

The main reason I decided to see this movie was because George Reeves was in this movie. I had of course seen him in re-runs of Superman as a young child. I briefly saw him in Gone With the Wind. I think this movie has a clever dialog. I liked the fact that the relationship of the older couple was not the usual that is seen in many movies of this time where the woman is submissive and polite to the husband. They are a typical couple arguing. I liked the way the election campaign turned out and the last line of the movie is the best political sarcasm I have heard in a long time. It was much more than I expected, of course looking at George Reeves is a treat in itself and I could not pass up one of my childhood heroes.

another shortie from N Smith and George Reeves

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 5 January 2014]

Always a Bride is another Warner Brothers shortie from director Noel Smith and George Reeves! A lover's triangle where Alice (Rosemary Lane) is being courted by two gentlemen callers. Marshall ( John Eldredge) manages to get a ring on her finger JUST before his counterpart Mike (George Reeves... yes, that's television's Adventures of Superman). The film is a series of confrontations between the three of them; one scene is a private discussion between the two men, then another at a dance where EVERYONE chimes in. This doesn't have the fun, happy, upbeat undercurrent that we felt in Smith's Father is a Prince. There is more arguing and yelling in this one, but it's entertaining enough. Over the course of an hour, Alice finds out what the guys are really like, and must make her decision. Each one has their pros and cons. Like Mike (and my grandmother) said, "here's mud in your eye!"

A goofy, loopy Preston Sturges-Frank Capra-esquire Comedy

[paluska · 8/10 · 13 September 2006]

I thoroughly enjoyed TV "Superman" George Reeves with Rosemary Lane as the girl he pursues and tries to "win over" from John Eldridge. George does play his out-of-work, contrarian, devil-may-care role "over the top," because that's JUST THE CHARACTER HE IS: a' la Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby, Joel McCrea in Sullivan's Travel, etc. Imagine either of those two actors, Bob Cummings, Robert Young--any of these would have played the part the same. It's BOY meets GIRL, BOY loses GIRL and BOY wins GIRL back by being himself. Good supporting cast, too. With all the renewed interest in poor George via Hollywoodland, see this picture for yourself when it comes on Turner Classics again. You'll really enjoy it: the underdog, march-to-the-beat of his own drummer vs. the staid, safe world out there--who should a girl (and her parents) choose?Some clever dialogue about marriage, nifty mayoral race tactics and a love triangle to boot. GO SEE IT for yourself. It's NOT awful. It's pretty darn good, and only about an hour long!

Awful

[Ripshin · 3 December 2003]

The horrible overacting of George Reeves really ruins this film. His method of performance basically consisted of yelling his lines, and arching his eyebrow. Of course, the unpleasant characters and ridiculous plot do not help matters, either.