Very Strange


Joan Bennett is gorgeous as usual,but her hair color changes from blond to dark to blond without reason throughout movie The cast is fantastic with little to do. !It very distracting in this slow placed movie

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Yeah, you can't help but notice the changes in Bennett's hair color -- and it goes unremarked upon by all the other characters! I couldn't decide myself which looked better on her, because she was beautiful with either shade. In real life, of course, she ultimately settled on very dark hair.

I also thought that May Whitty had some good moments, like when she threatens Fonda's mother with rat poison! Alan Marshall was good too, as Bennett's unstable first husband. His scene where he critiques the painting was a high point for him. And was it Louise Platt as the college girl with the crush on Professor Fonda? She too had some good moments, like her phone conversation with her rich father.

How about that joyride in which Bennett frightens Platt into a confession! That came out of no where!

*** out of *****

To a new world of gods and monsters!

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This is pure speculation, but, I may have an answer to the question of Bennett's changing hair-color in this film. Trade Winds is somewhat famed as the film in which Bennett went from blonde to black-haired -- and never went back. Both Trade Winds and I Met My Love Again were released in 1938, so it's possible that the films were being made -- at least in part -- at the same time. So, Bennett might've been called upon to film some scenes for IMMLA before she changed her hair color for TW, and some after. But, films are rarely shot in sequence, so she may have filmed scenes for early in the story AND late in the story before the color-change for Trade Winds.

It may have been possible to arrange to shoot all the "blonde" scenes for TW before getting Bennett's hair black but NOT possible to arrange to get all of IMMLA filmed before they had to "blacken" her to keep TW on-schedule.

Maybe sompun like that happened.

Matthew

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It's a plausible theory, but it doesn't work. IMMLA was released in January of 1938, and TW in December of that year. In addition, Bennett made two movies in between, so it's not a possibility.

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Dangit, I shoulda paid closer attention to all related filming and release dates. I don't think they'll be offering me a Time Lord license anytime soon.

I finally saw this film today. I wish it were better, altho it wasn't anywhere nearly as bad as I'd heard. It's just that I love Henry Fonda, and Joan Bennett is one of my very favorite actresses, and they made only two films together. Maybe I'll like Wild Geese Calling better.

Still, it's a somewhat limp, but also weird and fairly enjoyable flick. Fonda and Bennett's performances are a bit shaky early on (I'm not even going to attempt to guess the sequence in which the story was filmed), but they even out pretty quickly and the two stars are good separately and together. The cast in general is pretty good, with particular compensation being provided by the great Dame May Whitty as tough but loving Aunt *William* -- who will soon have a grandniece named *Michael*! -- and Tim Holt as a collegeboy jerk who genuinely cares for the girl he loves (it's like he was practicing for his part in Hitler's Children).

But the direction and the material itself ain't much to write home about. The story does attempt some literary signicance... It sorta tries to say something about the line between being yourself and presenting a false front when forming one's identity and dealing with relationships (Fonda sees himself as a man of thoughts and dreams early in the film and later second-guesses himself for doing so; the female student is seen by all as a drama queen whose play-acting threatens to ruin lives; even Michael the Lothario isn't in love with Bennett's character, he's simply once again applying a clearly not-new persona/schtick). And the way major changes in the protagonists' relationship are presages by big storms (snow at the beginning, rain at the end), is nice, I guess. But, just not enough of interest is done with any of this.

Altho, that climax is a hoot. If you take Bennett at her word in this scene, it's really wild and wonky. If you figure she knew exactly what she was doing -- calling the student's bluff -- then it's actually pretty clever a device.

In the end, it's the stars, Whitty and Holt who make it worth seeing.

Matthew

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That was rare to have two female characters with male names in a late 30's film.

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