Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery - a match made in beauty heaven (at the start of his career Montgomery would have complimented any actress).
I just love the young Norma Shearer. She wasn't always long suffering and stately ("Marie Antoinette" and "The Women"). The young Norma was happy, madcap, witty with an infectious laugh and a very natural acting ability. She had great charm - something that you don't see much in today's actresses. Being married to MGM's boy wonder (Irving Thalberg) didn't do any harm but I truly believe her own ability would have made her a big star on her own.
Norma plays Lally, a bright young girl who seems to have the perfect family. Then her father announces he is leaving her mother after 23 years of marriage for Mrs. Cheever - a woman Lally never liked . Lally's world is shattered.
Her mother is inconsolable and Lally decides she is through with her father. On a holiday to Lake Michigan with her mother, she meets Jack (Robert Montgomery) and there is an instant attraction.
With the haunting song "Blues in the Night" as a background, events take place. Belle Bennett, whose big success was the 1925 version of "Stella Dallas" and with some of the hammiest acting I have ever seen, plays Lally's mother.
Lally then discovers that Jack's mother is the woman her father left her mother for. A bit of the movie is taken up with "shall we be together or shall we part". Norma's emotional acting is wonderful and gives the film a higher standard than the plot, with other less capable actors, would.
Of course there is the happy ending but not before some exciting action sequences, involving a nasty storm and the phrase "missing - presumed drowned".
I just love the young Norma Shearer. She wasn't always long suffering and stately ("Marie Antoinette" and "The Women"). The young Norma was happy, madcap, witty with an infectious laugh and a very natural acting ability. She had great charm - something that you don't see much in today's actresses. Being married to MGM's boy wonder (Irving Thalberg) didn't do any harm but I truly believe her own ability would have made her a big star on her own.
Norma plays Lally, a bright young girl who seems to have the perfect family. Then her father announces he is leaving her mother after 23 years of marriage for Mrs. Cheever - a woman Lally never liked . Lally's world is shattered.
Her mother is inconsolable and Lally decides she is through with her father. On a holiday to Lake Michigan with her mother, she meets Jack (Robert Montgomery) and there is an instant attraction.
With the haunting song "Blues in the Night" as a background, events take place. Belle Bennett, whose big success was the 1925 version of "Stella Dallas" and with some of the hammiest acting I have ever seen, plays Lally's mother.
Lally then discovers that Jack's mother is the woman her father left her mother for. A bit of the movie is taken up with "shall we be together or shall we part". Norma's emotional acting is wonderful and gives the film a higher standard than the plot, with other less capable actors, would.
Of course there is the happy ending but not before some exciting action sequences, involving a nasty storm and the phrase "missing - presumed drowned".