2/10
Kept Husbands Are Bad for Marriages
30 August 2022
Warning: Spoilers
In this below average comedy a man was convinced to stop working and start writing and then things got bad.

Steve Merrick (Norman Foster) insisted Anne (Carole Lombard) marry him. She refused initially because she didn't want him to have to worry about taking care of her. She preferred he devote his time to being an author and not bringing in a weekly check.

You see, once they marry, Anne would have to stop working and be a homemaker. Steve would have to take care of the both of them and he couldn't do that while trying to write a book that may or may not be a big seller. Such a thing as a dual income household was strictly for the poor. No woman was going to work in an upright, respectable, American home.

Anne succumbed to Steve's proposal when he said that they could do a trial marriage. If after a year she still wanted out, he'd grant her a divorce.

Yeah right, like that would happen. I've seen enough of these movies to know that divorces are never easily granted, and for whatever reason people have to go to Mexico and France to get divorces (I'm not sure how a divorce in another country would be legally recognized in the U. S.).

A year passed and the two were just as happy as they were on day one, so Anne decided to re-up. One of the conditions of Anne's subscription renewal was that she'd work and Steve would work on his book. She practically strong armed Steve into quitting his job. It was either allow her to take care of things so he could quit to work on his book or she would leave him. He took option A.

It wasn't long before Steve was miserable. He felt like a "kept husband" and if you've watched "Kept Husbands" or "Platinum Blonde" then you know that self-respecting men don't like being financially supported by their women. Steve couldn't keep house and write his book and he was unhappy. Personally, I didn't understand why there was so much to do in the apartment when only two people lived there. It's not like they had kids, yet Steve was always busy with cleaning, answering the phone, and answering the door.

He angrily left Anne when she threw it in his face that she was taking care of him. She didn't help matters by going on lunch dates with an old crush, Gil (Theodore von Eltz). They split in a raucous fashion and I couldn't help but think, "Anne, you're pretty dumb."

She didn't know men, and more specifically, she didn't know her own husband. He was perfectly happy working full-time, taking care of the love of his life, and working on his book part time. Anne insisted that he'd eventually lament not being able to work on his book full-time because he had to take care of her. It sounded like projection. It was probably a feeling she had, yet she insisted that Steve would be miserable taking care of her.

If that wasn't obtuse enough, she was less than understanding of Steve's struggling being a stay-at-home-husband. He didn't want to do it, so of course he was having trouble with it. Then, for her to go out with Gil and dismiss Steve's feelings about it was an additional blow. Anne pretty much had no pulse on her husband's happiness and ruined a good thing because of it.

Free on YouTube.
0 out of 1 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed