The Wedding Night *** (1935, Gary Cooper, Anna Sten, Ralph Bellamy, Sig Ruman, Helen Vinson) – Classic Movie Review 7178

Gary Cooper stars in the romantic drama The Wedding Night (1935) as an author called Tony Barrett who is married to Dora (Helen Vinson), and causes chaos in a Polish farming family when he takes a shine to pretty young farm girl Manya Novak (Anna Sten), whose father Mr Jan Novak (Sig Ruman, aka Siegfried Rumann) has pledged her to dull Fredrik Sobieski (Ralph Bellamy).

While Dora returns to New York, Barrett stays in Connecticut and hires Manya as his cook and cleaner and they soon fall in love. But he is married and she is pledged to marry a man she has not chosen.

Based on a story by Edwin Knopf, King Vidor’s 1935 drama is finely acted by an excellent on-form cast and told with style. Though it helps that it runs a very brisk 82 minutes, it still ends up as a curiously lifeless drama from director Vidor. It is a problem with the screenplay written by Edith Fitzgerald, based on an original story by Edwin H Knopf. However, Vidor won the Best Director award at the Venice Film Festival in 1935, where it was also nominated as Best Foreign Film.

Also in the cast are Esther Dale, Leonid Snegoff, Milla Davenport, Agnes Anderson, Walter Brennan, Douglas Wood and George Meeker.

The Wedding Night is directed by King Vidor, runs 82 minutes, is made by Howard Productions and the Samuel Goldwyn Company, is released by United Artists, is written by Edith Fitzgerald, is shot in black and white by Gregg Toland, is produced by Samuel Goldwyn and is scored by Alfred Newman.

Apparently Cooper disliked Sten so much that he called her ‘Anna Stench’.

It is one of several films Cooper filmed with Brennan, though he nearly fell out with Goldwyn over being cast with him in The Westerner (1940).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7178

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