Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Helloturia I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

pronker pronker First of all, this is a filmed play with bewildering time skips. It's the weather that clues us in to "six months later" or "that following spring" as characters don fur coats or dress in short sleeves. I was confused in the beginning and at the end of movie, figured the whole thing occupies about two years.My, it's well acted. After Harding feels clucky when idling her transatlantic voyage away by playing companion to a two year old of a fellow voyager, she decides to take up her live in lover's, Howard's, proposal of marriage. He's proposed numerous times, and she supposes he'll be thrilled that she agrees at last to make it legal. Her giddy expectation that he'll be happy with a/her baby needs and b/her revelation that she's artistically ready to paint made me smile. Surprise! He's found Loy, a sultry young lady ready, after one month, to marry him. He still wants Harding as Dear Friend, waiting in the shadows until he's ready to dribble out some time to her, hooboy, now that's never happened in the history of the world. :SNow comes the tangling of lives and families that make up the Barry play blueprint of Domineering Parent and Befuddled Child. The child, Howard, has integrity up the wazoo but not much ready cash. As a sidenote, all these characters have varying degrees of wealth, living as "Bohemian" in spacious apartments with glorious views or living in well-appointed homes in the country. I guess if you live in a mansion, like Parent, you want your child to do likewise.Eight stars for acting from the cast: Gargan as an unlikely butler, Loy as schemer (to me, she was written as completely unsympathetic), Harding as full of herself while blind to Howard's eventual tiring of her resistance to marriage, and most of all Howard for his end scene with Loy in which the lights come on about which woman acts Nicest and Kindest to him. He portrays superbly the realization that now is the time to act and not waffle with words.

marym52 Ann Harding stands out in the first half of the thirties-- a natural platinum blond, she kept her hair long, wore it in a low bun, and used a minimum of makeup. Her natural beauty had a foil in Myrna Loy, her co-star in several films. Loy has a chic, lacquered Art Deco beauty-- quite up-to the-minute.Harding played witty, intelligent women of strong character and soft voice.Some of her best roles were as the wife of an unfaithful husband who takes her lot with good humor and goes on to make her own successful life. This was a daring plot in its time, but the enforcement of the Production Code pulled its teeth."The Animal Kingdom" begins with Leslie Howard's friends and father getting together to discuss him. In his father's eyes, Tom Collier has wasted his life as the owner of a small press that publishes scholarly and art books. They bring up the fact that he has lived with a bohemian artist for three years. Adorable Myrna Loy says she knows all about her-- and announces her engagement to Tom.Tom arrives, and decides that if his engagement is to be announced, he should immediately go and tell Daisy, his lover, who has just arrived from studying painting in Europe.We, the audience, are prepared by this opener for a scene in which a hard-bitten Jezebel turns on Tom with violent retribution, threatening to wreck his life and his marriage. Instead, we find soft-spoken Ann Harding's radiant beauty and strength of character. She's heartbreaking as she puts her dream of life with Tom aside, and breaks with him completely when he proposes that their relationship should continue after his marriage.Some viewers are puzzled by the title. It comes during a speech in which Daisy acknowledges that Tom can be sexually attracted to other women: "After all our big speeches, we still belong to the animal kingdom." The balance of the film concerns Tom's marriage, and Daisy's continuing struggle to resist his advances. Tom wants to have his cake and eat it, too-- an exciting sex life with Cecilia (Loy) and deep affection and understanding with Daisy.Gradually, we see that Cecilia believes her only hold on men is sex, which she uses to manipulate her old friend (Neil Hamilton) and Tom. She convinces Tom to turn his press into a moneymaker by publishing drugstore paperbacks. She sweet talks Hamilton into buying out Tom's Bantam Press for a huge price. Her mistake is to throw surprise birthday party for Tom, inviting his old artistic friends so he can see what lightweights they are.At the party, Daisy reads the latest manuscript up for publication and gives Tom honest criticism on what his press has become. Tom's father presents him with a huge check to show his approval of Tom's changed life-- and to convince Tom and Daisy to move in with him at his town house. It looks as if Daisy is going to have everything she wants.Tom finally balks at the pressure to take the money, move, and sell his beloved press. Cecilia thinks she knows how to win him over-- with dinner in her cozy sitting room with the promise of a wild night in bed if he capitulates.Unfortunately, her flower and candle-filled boudoir reminds Tom of the private dining rooms of a high class whorehouse he frequented as a student in London. He starts dropping innuendo that it takes Cecilia some time to understand, complimenting her in the shallow way a whore would expect. As Cecila becomes drunk on champagne, she takes the compliments as proof she's won Tom over to her side.When Cecilia makes a seductive move to the bedroom, Tom places his father's check on the mantle piece-- just as he had left the twenty-pound note for the prostitutes.As he leaves their house, Tom announces, "I'm going home to my wife!" And that, of course, would be Daisy.After the Production Code was enforced, the nuanced view of "The Animal Kingdom" went out the window. The Loy character would be presented as such a harpy that you couldn't understand what the husband saw in her. Instead of an independent woman with her own career, Harding would be a housewife completely dependent on the husband. The plot would often center on the wife seducing the husband back to their home."The Animal Kingdom" vanished from view; in the 1950s and 60s, it was still considered too racy to revive on television. I'm so happy that it survived for future audiences. I wish it would receive the greater recognition it deserves.

karlpov I came away from this with a somewhat different message than the playwright intended (the same playwright, I should point out, who started The Philadelphia Story with a comedic stylization of wife-beating). The hero, played by Leslie Howard, starts a publishing enterprise devoted to the avant-garde works admired by his friends. He marries, and surprise, his wife, played rather icily by Myrna Loy, has the philistine idea that he should publish a few titles which will actually reap a profit so that he can at least finance his little enterprise without losing the family fortune. The movie leaves no doubt that such a money-grubbing attitude is worthy of the deepest condemnation. Hubby naturally finds himself longing for his former without-benefit-of-clergy bedmate, played by Ann Harding, who understands his sensitive soul and is more likely to indulge his dissipating his wealth, since she has no more sense than he does.Oh, I enjoyed the movie, but I'm surprised that so many seem not to notice how shallow and stupid its ideas are. Leslie Howard does his best to make the protagonist seem noble, and I guess that for many viewers, he succeeds. Loy, not yet a star, is lovely as always.

wes-connors After his engagement to alluring socialite Myrna Loy (as Cecilia Henry), Connecticut publisher Leslie Howard (as Tom Collier) learns former friend and lover, artist Ann Harding (as Daisy Sage), is returning to an apartment they shared. Professing her undying love, Ms. Harding startles Mr. Howard by proposing he marry her, instead; and, as Harding notes, she is accepting Howard's numerous past proposals. Howard is conflicted, but chooses to marry Ms. Loy. Yet, Howard can't forget Harding - does he love Loy, Harding, or both? "The Animal Kingdom" is a sleepy, spineless version of Philip Barry's stage play - but, it has a good cast.**** The Animal Kingdom (12/23/32) Edward H. Griffith ~ Leslie Howard, Ann Harding, Myrna Loy, William Gargan