The Divorce of Lady X

Trailer—The Divorce of Lady X

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A well-to-do London divorce lawyer thinks he is ruined because he has become - unwittingly - a litigant in one of his future cases. Hard to start this review without giving a bit of a history lesson. This old stage chestnut seemed to tickle the pre-war Britain audience and bringing it to the screen - pretty much as-is - was seen as a sure-thing. You also have to remember that in those days divorce, hotel rooms and gay (in the original sense of the word) women where seen as racy. Indeed getting a divorce was beyond many a pocket as you had to prove adultery (or some other fault) in a court of law. Hence the tiptoeing private detective! Great to see the triumvirate of Lawrence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and Merle Oberon about their craft. Especially in material that is more comedic than serious. All people worth learning about. Sadly the colour (nitrate) negative seems to have deteriorated (as it does!) and now has the look of a 8 mm home movie. While still watchable - in this form - some showings may revert to black and white. Olivier was always best with some kind of humorous undercurrent. Here he is not yet at the top of his game - and was never any kind of Carry Grant when he was - but plays the confused lead with some gusto. Richardson remains an enigma - the "best Falstaff of all time" say some - but more personality than actor. He could only be variations on himself, although perfect in roles such as this: An upper-class gentleman's club bore. The mixed race Oberon (they always lit her face with strong light to disguise her Indian skin tint) actually has the nerve to twinkle and scene-steal. Hollywood soon took notice. This isn't essential stuff unless you are a fan of the three principles or like British cinema-light. Olivier hadn't - at that time - totally mastered screen acting but was about to go in to his best work, which includes Wuthering Heights (which he was not true to the book - but very memorable) and Henry V (which is a breathtaking film). This is a comedy of manners and maybe some of the comedy comes from the dated aspects of those manners.

In a witty role unusual for the man we associate with Shakespeare's dark tragedies, Olivier gives us a glimmer into the man that Vivien Leigh fell in love with. The fact that her descent into madness was accelerated by his love/affair with Joan Ploywright is made understandable by the sheer good looks and intelligence of this fantastic actor. Merle Oberon did a right nice job herself, for an American actress going up against such magnificence. She has the right attitude of sauciness and sweet innocence. For those of us in love with London and the strange ways of the English upper classes, the movie is quite fascinating as well. The casual attitude toward affairs really knocks me out!! All sorts of jokes are made about what is generally a heart breaking experience to us common people. Intellectually, I can understand the seeming ridiculousness of a girl trying to play the part of a many-married, much bedded woman of the world but the 'moral' part of me was quite shocked. The fact that I still think it one of the funniest smartest comdedies I've ever seen (in funny-looking color as well), is simply a plaudit to the excellent film itself. The English are a strange people whom I enjoy studying, sharing their blood lines but not their culture. This is a help, at least where 30's upper-class England is concerned. You probably can't find it anywhere, but I own it and it's great!!!

source: The Divorce of Lady X

In rather wishy-washy Technicolor, this comedy of manners which the US did so well, and the UK less so, puts Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon together (they would make a good team in Wuthering Heights as well) as the couple who set off on a mistaken identity trial where Olivier's barrister thinks he is arranging the divorce of Oberon's husband because of her staying in his hotel room ... It is a story that's been done a lot, and often better than this, but the playing of the leads means there is a certain amount of comedy and a bit of a mischievous spark from Oberon, who knows she has to catch this particular fish, but hatches an elaborate plan to do so.

At one point in the film, Olivier is cross examining a woman accused of adultery during a divorce trial. She is acting coy and Olivier goes off into a rant against all women. Below is a quote of his words. "Woman has a religion of her own, the ancient creed of womanhood. There is only one article of faith, but every woman sincerely and steadfastly believes in it, and that is she is the unique and perfect achievement of the human species, being especially evolved to be above criticism, beyond reproach and outside the law. Man in his folly and kindness has been bamboozled into accepting woman as a rational being and has granted her emancipation on that assumption. What is his reward? Modern woman has disowned womanhood and refuses man's obligations. She demands freedom but won't accept responsibility. She insists upon time to develop her personality and she spends it on cogitating on which part of her body to paint next. By independence, she means idleness. By equality, she means carrying on like Catherine the Great. By companionship with man, she means that he should wait upon her hand and foot. Modern woman has no loyalty, decency or justice; no endurance, reticence or self-control; no affection, fine-feelings or mercy. In short, she is unprincipled, relentless and exacting; idle, unproductive and tedious; unimaginative, humorless and vain; vindictive, undignified and weak, and the sooner man takes out his whip again, the better for sanity and progress."

You very rarely get to see Laurence Olivier do comedy but in this he does his very best. Merle Oberon is the star of this for sure but the real star of this film is the story, and the chaos of it. With this fun little English gem you'll get a comedy of errors. You know the kind. The one where all each character has to do is ask 1 basic question and the whole confusion would be solved. Not in this one. Without the question, we get keystone cops of a romantic nature. The simple idea is that a heavy fog rolls into London and everyone has to find a place to stay for the night. Olivier stops and finds a room at a hotel where a Victorian themed ball is going on. These attendees find out too late to get a room at the hotel...except ms. Oberon. She finagles her way into Olivier's room and from this, chaos comes soon after. A fun kinda chaos. Watch this and see what a girl can do to a guy just by batting her eyelashes and using her "feminine wiles" to get what she wants....in a real cute way. See why no man in the world has a chance against a beautiful and charming woman. For any guy out there, see this and you'll wanna be Olivier. You'll wanna be charmed by Merle Oberon.

An incredible little English film for so many reasons. First it's a rare look a Laurence Olivier in a light comedy. While his performance is not up the standard he would latter set as one of the greatest actors of the 20th century, he is perfectly believable as the hoodwinked barrister. Historically this film is of great interest because of both where and when it was shoot. Being English it didn't have the big budget of the Hollywood films of the same era and it often shows, but more interesting is the fact this movie filmed just prior to the war and shows an England that would soon be gone. When we watch it today we think in terms of modern morality and over look the fact that this movie and its closest American counter part `It Happened One Night' were in their day as risqué as `Fatal Instinct' was in our time. But after watching and enjoying this movie the first time I can't help but feel sadness when I watch it today. With half of film shoot before 1950 gone, saving the remaining films means hard choices, and unfortunately films like this are often passed over to save movies that we all consider important. The color shifting, lack of contrast, and generally poor quality of the print most often seen is heartbreaking. This movie along with `It Happened One Night' are perfect to curl up with a love one under a blanket on cool a cool evening and watch, or better yet why not a double feature.

This is a zombie film, right? How else to explain Oberon's ghastly makeup. Her face in the hotel scenes look worse than some corpses I've seen. Or did she have some variation of jaundice that turned her face funeral grey? Then there's Olivier. He's a stiff of another kind.Sure, his coloring is better. But he's got the charms of a cricket bat. Name me a single movie where he isn't an brittle, neurotic, uptight prig of some sort or another. Everything fronm Hamlet to Neil Diamond's dad in The Jazz Singer. All stiffs. I can't tell whether I saw what's supposed to be a restored Technicolor version of thie movie. Or the one that looks like it has the same color saturationn as the portrait of my grandparents that hung in their living room for decades. It's all so grey, unpleasant and charmless. Much like the country it came from.