vincentlynch-moonoi I will say the same here that I have said every time I have ever watched a movie with Hedy Lamarr -- I just don't get it. Yes, I know, she was quite beautiful. But as an actress...well, frankly, I'd rather watch Marjorie Main! Her choice as one of the female leads here is one of the two things wrong with this movie, although she is adequate.The second relates to the college scenes. What a bunch of buffoons! Were they supposed to all be buffoons? Didn't college guys have any sophistication back then at all? Was there no substance at all? Now, beyond those two points, this is a decent movie, although I'm surprised that here it has a rating of above 7. Robert Young (Pulham) is a typical Bostonian businessman, who lives a very ordered life. His wife (Ruth Hussey) also lives a very ordered life. As one source related it -- passionless. Young is handed the job of organizing a college reunion, which leads to flashbacks of his earlier life. After WWI, he joins a New York City advertising agency, where he falls in love coworker Marvin Miles (Hedy Lamarr, and yes, the name Marvin is correct). Some of the scenes with the father (Charles Coburn) are quite touching, and I think rather realistic. Over time it becomes clear that Young is staid and Lamarr is flamboyant. Not a match. So, Young marries a woman from his own social set (Ruth Hussey). Then, Lamarr and Young have a chance at a personal reunion. Both are married, but will they run away together? That is the question.As much as many of us loved Robert Young in his television roles, many of his screen roles were less impressive (though there were a few notable exceptions, this being one, another being "Enchanted Cottage"). Another of our reviewers wrote that Young was too bland for his role here. Actually, no, a bit of blandness is just what this role was really about. Young does very well here.Ruth Hussey, perhaps a bit of an underrated actress does nicely here. As does Charles Coburn, Van Heflin (as an old college friend), and Fay Holden (as the mother).It's a good, though not great film. There are times the music seems a little out of place, and times when director King Vidor seemed to almost try to make this a comedy, which it is not. But, despite a few faults, it gets the job done and is worth watching...though it probably hasn't found a place on many DVD shelves.

Maliejandra Kay Right from the beginning, one might mistake this film for a comedy. In fact, the artistic opening sequences make H. M. Pulham (Robert Young) out to be a rather eccentric man. But as the film goes on, we learn that his is a complex and likable man with a life relateable to anyone at anytime. He is notified of a Harvard class reunion and for the event, he must write a personal biography. Writing it turns out to be difficult, and we journey through memories in search of the ones to include.As a young boy, Pulham was brought up in a highly educated and somewhat rigid environment. His mother (Fay Holden), father (Charles Coburn), and sister (Bonita Granville) loved him and accepted his friends willingly, especially Bill King (Van Heflin). They even arranged for a girl to be nearby at all times (Ruth Hussey); he even eventually married her. However, the one aspect of his life that was not planned was his love affair with an advertiser named Marvin (Hedy Lamarr). Thinking about her brings back all of the passion they had for each other, and he begins to wonder why they never ended up together when they were in love.This movie is sentimental and entertaining. Each of the actors is excellent in his part, especially Lamarr who exercises a new part of her personality. In most of her films, she plays a seductive and somewhat distant woman. Here, she is warm and inviting, much more like an ideal wife and mother. One could easily imagine her sitting by the fire mending socks or cooking over a hot stove and all the while remaining radiantly beautiful.

howardmorley This film produced in 1941 contains a surprisingly modern story line of a career girl - Marvin Myles Ransome, played by Hedy Lamarr from a poor immigrant background, who works at an advertising agency in New York and there has a romance with Robert Young, playing a rich Boston heir - Harry Moulton Pulham who makes a hit with his boss on a soap campaign for a client. Harry's parents and family don't want him to work at the agency however.They want him to come back to Boston,join the family firm and marry a "nice" girl of their own choosing.What is intriguing is that for 1941 this film, directed and written by acclaimed director King Vidor, has a surprisingly modern theme.Hedy puts her career first before marriage because she realises, after visiting Harry's family home, that the stuffy atmosphere there with its restrictive ideas of what young ladies can and cannot do, would not be conducive to her long term personal happiness.Quite a mature decision considering that Harry comes from a rich family.They both then go their separate, reluctant, ways and are married to different partners for 20 years or so.Marvin contacts Harry after this time because we suspect they are still in love.After a later meeting in Marvins luxury New York flat at her instigation, they are obviously still very fond of each other.Harry kisses Marvin on the lips to prove his affection.We know of course that the morality code operating in films at the time could not condone an affair and that marriage - the status quo - must in the end triumph.Even here there is for the time an unusual twist.After quizzing his wife, Codelia, played by Ruth Hussey over the breakfast table whether they are truly happy and still in love, she changes her mind about her inability to leave her social engagements and surprises her husband at work as she has been thinking about what he said about taking off into the hills just the two of them and without their own family; to re-ignite their marriage.I found it surprisingly modern in its theme as I suspect royal marriages without love are still happening today!In 2013 I wrote a general amendment to this and other user comments which also applies to those actresses whose films I have already commented on IMDb.com in recent years.My love goddess/film actresses are Margaret Lockwood, Jennifer Jones, Vivien Leigh, Hedy Lamarr & Ava Gardner.Perhaps you will notice they were all dark brunette 1940s (& 50s) stars.It occurred to me that there should be one defining film which perfectly encapsulates for me their intrinsic personality, talent glamour & intellect.These are my choices after years of deliberation: Margaret Lockwood - "The Wicked Lady" (1945), Jennifer Jones - "Portrait Of Jennie" (1948), Vivien Leigh - "That Hamilton Woman" (1941), Hedy Lamarr - H.M.Pulman esq (1941), Ava Gardner "One Touch of Venus" (1948).

FERNANDO SILVA What a remarkable movie! It contains, as far as I've seen her, Hedy Lamarr's best performance ever...she's luminous here, human, warm, heart-wrenching, not the aloof goddess of other MGM films (which I like too, by the way). She gives a complex, multi-layered performance as a liberal, independent, unprejudiced, modern working woman who falls in love with a lad (grandly impersonated by Robert Young) who comes from an aristocratic, old fashioned, "blue-blood" family from Boston.They meet while working together in an advertising/publicity company, but their relationship is not an easy one, due to Marvin's (Hedy) unease with his family's morals, mores and ways...The movie is told in flashback, with Harry Pulham (Robert Young) remembering his childhood and younger days, when he's well into his forties and married to a woman of his same "Social Circle" (Ruth Hussey-what a good actress she was, giving a first-rate performance in a role so different from the one she played the previous year in "The Philadelphia Story").You can tell this movie was directed by a first rate director like King Vidor, who could handle so well "sociological" issues.Good performances too by Van Heflin as Young's pal, Bonita Granville as his sister, Charles Coburn as his father et al.An engrossing film, watch it on TCM, where it's scheduled regularly.