This Charming Couple (1950) User Reviews

This Charming Couple provides an interesting look at a divorced couple's early courtship

[tavm · 6/10 · 20 August 2008]

This was an educational short from the McGraw-Hill Company about a couple about to divorce as we flashback to their courtship as a young couple just enjoying themselves in the forest without a care in the world. He-Ken-is an aspiring novelist who teaches literature in college. She-Winnie-is an assistant to a dean who thinks her fiancée will be famous which might make her life more exciting. While they're attractive and seem to get along well, neither believes in compromise. In fact, Winnie thinks Ken's friends are snobs while Ken wonders if he can live up to his wife's ambitions of him. We also hear views-via voice-over-from Winnie's roommate and one of Ken's students of each, respectively. And Ken also has a hobby of recording folk artists in their natural environment such as an elder woman singer in the forest that brings to mind the real-life Alan Lomax who did such things. Then there's the marriage at the end that the narrator tells of why it's doomed when he emphasizes the personality differences between them. Perhaps a little dated because of the way it's filmed and scored but This Charming Couple does provide some insights of why not all marriages live "happily ever after". Oh, and as a Louisiana resident, I have to note that "Ken" is from New Orleans. To anyone wanting to seek this out, This Charming Couple is on the Internet Archive site.