The New Pictures
Dodsworth (Samuel Goldwyn-United Artists). "Why don't you try stout, Mr. Dodsworth?" drawls a woman's voice from the shadowy corner of a steamship deck. Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston) who has just asked the steward for a drink that will soothe his nerves, whirls around, surprised. Mr. Dodsworth's surprise was nothing to that of Producer Sam Goldwyn and his staff when, at this line, I he audience at a Hollywood preview last week burst into applause. The applauders were not partisans of stout but of Mary Astor, whose first line they recognized even before the camera moved over to her. Throughout the picture they kept applauding frequently and as she was coming out of the theatre in the flesh with Screenwriter Marcus Goodrich and her mother, they mobbed her. cheered her. shouted "You're all right, Mary!", begged her for her autograph.
Thus did the public affirm its recognition of a line performance, its sympathy for Mary Astor's position in her recent suit to get custody of her daughter (TIME, Aug. 17 & 24). Meanwhile Fate had brought Mary Astor the greatest picture, the most human and sympathy-winning role of her life just when she needed it most. Dodsworth, a forthright investigation of a universal problem, tells the story of a man battling to save his marriage from his wife's desire to keep young by cutting amorous capers. Sam sold his Revelation Motor Co. because Fran (Ruth Chatterton) wanted to go abroad and have some fun. Fun's first embodiment, a handsome shipmate, sharpened her eagerness by telling her quite frankly what he thought of women who began flirtations they were not prepared to finish. With Arnold Iselin (Paul Lukas) she finished her next one in Biarritz. To get her back. Sam worked with the same uncompromising power that had made him a motor tycoon, but their reconciliation was interrupted by Kurt (Gregory Gave). This time she asked for a divorce. Kurt, she felt sure, would extirpate the middle age she dreaded so, and which Sam seemed so ready to accept. A footsore, lonely Sam was being comforted in Italy by the platonic favors of a friendly expatriate named Edith Cortright (Mary Astor) when Kurt's mother told Fran why the old wives of young husbands are invariably miserable. From the automatic habit of more than 20 years Sam resumed the job of taking care of Fran, rebelled at the last moment, went back to Mrs. Cortright.
Dodsworth was adapted by Sidney Howard from his own dramatization of Sinclair Lewis' novel, directed with a proper understanding of its values by William Wyler, splendidly cast and brilliantly played.