In the years following The Divorcée, Norma Shearer was nominated for Best Actress for A Free Soul, The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Romeo and Juliet and Marie Antoinette. Personally I think all of those films were better than The Divorcée. Still this is the one she took home the gold for.
The Divorcée is a rather dated drama about an upper crust set of men and women who basically wife swap. The leader of this social set is Norma Shearer who gets around to all the available men in the cast and some not available. Not that her husband Chester Morris is letting the grass grow under his feet either. The film's action starts during the age of the high living Roaring Twenties with all that implies.
The three men in Norma's life are Morris, Robert Montgomery, and Conrad Nagel and there are hints of others being there as well after Norma divorces Morris. Florence Eldridge in one of her few films without her husband Fredric March plays her best friend and Helen Johnson plays the tragic wife of Conrad Nagel who only marries her after she's disfigured in a DWI that Nagel had after Shearer jilts him early on in the film.
All of them are quite good, but the film is really Norma's show. She runs through quite the gamut of emotions and the technical virtuosity of her performance is what got her the Oscar. That and the fact she was married to one of the most powerful moguls in Hollywood certainly helped.
There's a quite good performance by Tyler Brooke as the perpetually inebriated hanger on with their set. For a slice of life from The Roaring Twenties I'd look at The Divorcée.
The Divorcée is a rather dated drama about an upper crust set of men and women who basically wife swap. The leader of this social set is Norma Shearer who gets around to all the available men in the cast and some not available. Not that her husband Chester Morris is letting the grass grow under his feet either. The film's action starts during the age of the high living Roaring Twenties with all that implies.
The three men in Norma's life are Morris, Robert Montgomery, and Conrad Nagel and there are hints of others being there as well after Norma divorces Morris. Florence Eldridge in one of her few films without her husband Fredric March plays her best friend and Helen Johnson plays the tragic wife of Conrad Nagel who only marries her after she's disfigured in a DWI that Nagel had after Shearer jilts him early on in the film.
All of them are quite good, but the film is really Norma's show. She runs through quite the gamut of emotions and the technical virtuosity of her performance is what got her the Oscar. That and the fact she was married to one of the most powerful moguls in Hollywood certainly helped.
There's a quite good performance by Tyler Brooke as the perpetually inebriated hanger on with their set. For a slice of life from The Roaring Twenties I'd look at The Divorcée.