A woman who has been married and divorced five times comes back to her small hometown, where she proceeds to complicate, and potentially destroy, the marriage of her childhood boyfriend.A woman who has been married and divorced five times comes back to her small hometown, where she proceeds to complicate, and potentially destroy, the marriage of her childhood boyfriend.A woman who has been married and divorced five times comes back to her small hometown, where she proceeds to complicate, and potentially destroy, the marriage of her childhood boyfriend.
Photos
Edward Biby
- Party Guest
- (uncredited)
- …
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaFirst of three films made by Kay Francis at "Poverty Row" Monogram Pictures, released from 1945-46 at the end of her film career, after once being the "Queen of Warner Bros." in the 1930s. The other two films are Allotment Wives (1945) and Wife Wanted (1946). She also produced all three with Jeffrey Bernerd. All these films deal with marriage, ironically, for --like her character in this film--Francis was also married and divorced five times.
- GoofsIn the newspaper headline closeup, only the headline ("Phillips and Carter in Police Raid") has a correct first paragraph. The remainder of the story, as well as the other stories ("Meteorite Falls Near Baby" and "Cop Gets Medal") consist entirely of text from a textbook on economics.
- Quotes
Martha Phillips: I had a husband. I lost him. There's no use crying about it. I just want to call the whole thing off.
- Crazy creditsOpening card - Marriage - entered into with such high hopes - such promise of happiness. Then - too often --Divorce - which solves no problems - merely creating new ones - And - in its wake, leaves disillusionment, heartbreak, despair - Of such is our story...
Featured review
This film comes across as a sermon against divorce. It is incredibly preachy and completely lacking in dramatic interest.
"Divorce" opens with a crawl condemning divorce as certain to produce misery. It follows with a scene in family court in which a judge refuses to grant one divorce (thus forcing a couple who hate each other to stay together). He reluctantly grants a second despite the obvious collusion involved. The judge preaches against divorce as purely a product of selfishness and bitterness. In the second case, the wife is the oft-married Diane Carter who is a pure gold digger. She isn't present to hear the judge's opinion of her character.
Diane then returns to her home town where she quickly establishes herself as a world class home wrecker. With little effort, she breaks up the happy marriage of Bob and Martha. Diane offers Bob unlimited investment money for his struggling business and a lot more excitement than Martha and their two loving kids. When she catches on, Martha insists on a divorce and rejects all support, taking a humble job in a department store to support herself and the children. The children suffer badly from their dad's absence. Meanwhile, Bob discovers that Diane is no bed of roses.
Viewers of this film must understand that divorce was one of those forbidden subjects under the Hays Code. Filmmakers simply were not allowed to make a serious, balanced film about divorce. The Hays Code was written by a priest and a prominent Catholic layman (Daniel Lord and Martin Quigley). From 1934 on, the Code was firmly administered by a prominent Catholic layman (Joseph I. Breen). One of the reasons the industry accepted self censorship was to ward off boycott threats from the Catholic church. So it is no surprise that the Hays Code firmly embodied Catholic moral teachings--especially including absolute opposition to divorce. Broadly speaking, the only kind of divorce movies that got made during this period were romantic comedies (like "The Awful Truth") in which couples get divorced early in the picture but remarry in the end.
"Divorce" is a serious movie on the subject of divorce that could easily have been produced by the Catholic church to impress teenagers or young married couples at weekend retreats. It puts divorce on the level of genocide in the moral firmament. Its preachiness is incredible and its dramatic value is nil. Needless to say, Breen approved of this film without any reservations. (The censorship files are preserved at the Motion Picture Academy's Herrick library in Beverly Hills).
Diane then returns to her home town where she quickly establishes herself as a world class home wrecker. With little effort, she breaks up the happy marriage of Bob and Martha. Diane offers Bob unlimited investment money for his struggling business and a lot more excitement than Martha and their two loving kids. When she catches on, Martha insists on a divorce and rejects all support, taking a humble job in a department store to support herself and the children. The children suffer badly from their dad's absence. Meanwhile, Bob discovers that Diane is no bed of roses.
Viewers of this film must understand that divorce was one of those forbidden subjects under the Hays Code. Filmmakers simply were not allowed to make a serious, balanced film about divorce. The Hays Code was written by a priest and a prominent Catholic layman (Daniel Lord and Martin Quigley). From 1934 on, the Code was firmly administered by a prominent Catholic layman (Joseph I. Breen). One of the reasons the industry accepted self censorship was to ward off boycott threats from the Catholic church. So it is no surprise that the Hays Code firmly embodied Catholic moral teachings--especially including absolute opposition to divorce. Broadly speaking, the only kind of divorce movies that got made during this period were romantic comedies (like "The Awful Truth") in which couples get divorced early in the picture but remarry in the end.
"Divorce" is a serious movie on the subject of divorce that could easily have been produced by the Catholic church to impress teenagers or young married couples at weekend retreats. It puts divorce on the level of genocide in the moral firmament. Its preachiness is incredible and its dramatic value is nil. Needless to say, Breen approved of this film without any reservations. (The censorship files are preserved at the Motion Picture Academy's Herrick library in Beverly Hills).
helpful•2712
- Michael-110
- Mar 12, 2000
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Divorcio
- Filming locations
- 220 North Broadway, Los Angeles, California, USA(Los Angeles County Hall of Records depicted as a courthouse at beginning of film - demolished 1974)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 11 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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