The husband is a jerk


Why exactly did they think the audience wanted to see the two reconcile and stay together in the end? The husband is foul, with an ugly face to match his personality. Yet the gorgeous wife stays with him, even after he threatens to strangle her. Were the women of the 1930's really so weak and stupid?

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I was thinking the same thing. While I quite like the wife, I wish that either she left her husband [but not for the other guy, since I wasn't very fond of him] or that her husband changed and became a little more sensitive. Such a sarcastic whiny prick, eh?

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Lol!
You guys are right on the money...
What an unlikeable acehole.

Trust me,
Swan

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OK, admittedly the guy was not your gentlemen's gentleman, but hold on there a minute ladies! Who was the first to go tramping around, kissing and all to Commander Gordon while the hubby was in bed with Sea-sickness? lol What's good for the goose is just as good for the gander, right? They both should have been eaten by cannibals instead of that cat or civit, I would say! FuturePrimitive666.

"*bleep* it all and *bleep*ing no regrets!"

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As I was reading through the replies, I wondered when I'd come to one which would point that out. I even reasoned with myself, "How come I dislike him so much when she was the first to stray?" After thinking about it, it's really very simple.

I think he's getting the bad rap because of his entire attitude. She didn't want to leave him, period, whereas he was willing to toss her aside without too much conscience. It's not really a matter of who did what first, so much as who really loved who. She appears to have really loved her husband, but felt lonesome and he was more concerned with money.

Even in the very beginning he wanted to have a fortune to spend and she was happy enough making her own dresses and living the lower middle class life.

When looking at it that way, he really was a cad and she was much more amiable.

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CindyH you are right on the money (no pun intended). I couldn't have said it better myself.

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Thank you very much!

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So she wanted to both eat the cake (Commander Gordon) and keep it (Fred), and that makes him a jerk? Flawed reasoning.

--------------------------------
Oh you mad cuz I'm stylin on you

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No. Reread my post.

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The Shakespeare reference in the title is apt. As Harold Bloom points out, the men in Shakespeare (except Hamlet and Falstaff) are never good enough for the women.


...Om

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He was a cad of the first order, and he wore more makeup than she did! I guess the wife's love was blind ... and deaf ... and dumb ...

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The marriage was in trouble at the start of the movie; add mucho money and that's what happens. They are both at fault. I thought Fred was cute in his own way, I liked his hair style.

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Yes, Fred's hair was kind of New Wavey. He could have been the lead singer of a band in the '80s.

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He reminded me of Harry Enfield and she of Sophie Dahl.

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Fred was totally cute.

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I think he was quite possibly intended to be better-looking by the standards of the day than we would nowadays consider him: it's not a style I admire, but I've seen it (coupled with the make-up) on a number of supposed movie idols of the late 20s/early 30s.

On the other hand, it's entirely possible that he was intended to be unattractive as well as unappealing, and that the Princess fastened upon him as a boy-toy purely because he was the most gullible chump on the ship (as Commander Gordon -- who is of course not entirely disinterested in the matter -- says).

~~Igenlode

Gather round, lads and lasses, gather round...

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I beg to differ. His Wikepedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kendall_%28actor%29 shows a distinguished history. I just read The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock (1983), Little, Brown & Co. Donald Spoto, the author, mentions in it that Henry Kendall was, in fact, homosexual (which was not a matter of prurient interest to Hitchcock, he also avers). In the film, Fred Hill behaves quite hetero-actively, not shying away from Joan Barry or "the Princess" as a homo is said to behave. Does it matter what an actor's sexual proclivities are anyway in any day and age? They are "actors", after all.

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