SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

atlasmb This early talkie has a running time of only 65 minutes. No surprise, then, that the story is rather thin. The lead character, Lally (Norma Shearer), is a young woman torn between her love for a man and her allegiance to her mother, who clings to her. Although Lally longs to reach out for personal happiness and to marry Jack (Robert Montgomery), she struggles to overcome her mother's indoctrination against marriage, which is based upon the failure of her own union.Editing is choppy in "Their Own Desire" and the photography provides little beauty that might reflect the love between Lally and Jack. Stronger is the insidious, unhealthy devotion of Lally to her mother.The ending feels false and simplistic, with no real resolution of the conflict. Still, Norma Shearer acquits herself well, showing a range of emotions.

calvinnme Today, most women initiate divorces. But there was a time when it was the other way around since women had few options outside of the home. If you were a woman, you'd just better hope that as the bloom fell off of your rose that your husband did not get the 7, 17, or 27 year itch. This is about the impact of one of those marriages with an itchy husband, an unlikely cad, Lewis Stone as Marlett.I like how this movie takes the time to build up the characters, always a trademark of screenwriter Frances Marion. A great deal of time is spent in the beginning to show the respect and friendship wealthy author Marlett has with his only child, Lally (Norma Shearer). Then a tell - she asks her dad as they walk up the drive, what book he is working on. He says it is a romance involving a 45 year old man. She, about 20, laughs at the idea. Marlett says that the middle aged are made of flesh and bone too. That life is not over at 30 as youngsters think, and that they thirst for romance, that "last" romance, indicating that dad might be thirsty. When they get to the top of the drive, the slender and glamorous Mrs. Chevers is talking to Lally's mom about her son, Doug, who is away at Princeton. Lally's mom is graying, a bit overweight, a bit sedentary, and Marlett calls her affectionately "mama". Indicating that he thinks of her as first Lally's mom - and a good one - and then a wife.A year passes and Marlett and his wife are planning to divorce, as is Mrs. Chevers from her husband, but Lally yet knows none of this. She walks into her dad's study and catches Mrs. Chevers and her father in a passionate embrace, talking of marriage. Then her dad tries to justify it. He says that he and her mother are not the same boy and girl who made all of those promises 23 years before. I like Lally's translations - that perhaps he sees her mom as fat and a bit boring "unlike the slick Mrs. Chevers". He says he intends to keep the house. She reminds him that doesn't matter to her since her mom is being bundled out of that house and Mrs. Cheever is being brought in to replace her. Lally says her final goodbye to him and plans to never marry because she will not be made a fool of as her mother has been, and the male sex has fallen mightily in her esteem because of her father's fall, which he won't even acknowledge as a misdeed.So off go mother and daughter for a summer vacation before mom goes to France for a divorce, which was the custom in that day. When Lally reiterates her vow to never marry, her mom is happy, which seems odd. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Marlett is not succeeding at hanging out at his old haunts with his new mistress. They both get the cold shoulder from everyone. I'm not sure why this scene was in here other than to show that people did pass moral judgment on affairs and homewreckers at that time, and that a smooth transition did not await them both if they proceed.On vacation, Lally meets a guy (Robert Montgomery) who really fancies her. They dance, they enjoy each other's company, and maybe Lally is softening on men just a bit until she discovers his full name - Jack "Doug" Chevers - son of the woman who has ousted her mother, a symbol of why she decided to not take men seriously in the first place.So Lally is one confused girl. She has a mom who encourages her to play the field due to her own bad experience with marriage. She has a dad who thinks "until death do we part" is just a phrase people like to kick around at weddings, and she has a beau who is insisting on marriage now - as in right this minute. How will this all work out? Watch and find out.This is very good writing by Frances Marion who had already had a couple of short lived marriages that did not work out and one that did that ended in her husband's sudden death just the year before. Thus she could approach this subject of love from the viewpoint of someone who had seen all of the angles. I'd highly recommend it.

barnesgene The Amendment giving women the right to vote was only nine years old when this movie was made. It sure shows. I'm not a big feminist (is any male, really?), but I was grinding my teeth whenever the question, "Oh, Darling, won't you be mine?" was asked. Today, it's a quaint notion, but at that time, the idea that a man could own a woman was accepted without any raised eyebrows. I found the love affair between the two leads simply not credible; it had no traction. One couldn't imagine happening today what the Shearer character decides with respect to her new lover -- and we're seemingly so much more sophisticated these days. Ah, 'tis a queer, ironic world. A technical note: If the couple was on Lake Michigan when the storm blew up, somebody needed to tell the author that there just ain't that many islands in the lake, and none within an easy row or swim. A little reminiscent of Puccini's opera "Manon Lescaut," the final scene of which takes place in the "Louisiana desert."

kidboots Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery - a match made in beauty heaven (at the start of his career Montgomery would have complimented any actress).I just love the young Norma Shearer. She wasn't always long suffering and stately ("Marie Antoinette" and "The Women"). The young Norma was happy, madcap, witty with an infectious laugh and a very natural acting ability. She had great charm - something that you don't see much in today's actresses. Being married to MGM's boy wonder (Irving Thalberg) didn't do any harm but I truly believe her own ability would have made her a big star on her own.Norma plays Lally, a bright young girl who seems to have the perfect family. Then her father announces he is leaving her mother after 23 years of marriage for Mrs. Cheever - a woman Lally never liked . Lally's world is shattered.Her mother is inconsolable and Lally decides she is through with her father. On a holiday to Lake Michigan with her mother, she meets Jack (Robert Montgomery) and there is an instant attraction.With the haunting song "Blues in the Night" as a background, events take place. Belle Bennett, whose big success was the 1925 version of "Stella Dallas" and with some of the hammiest acting I have ever seen, plays Lally's mother.Lally then discovers that Jack's mother is the woman her father left her mother for. A bit of the movie is taken up with "shall we be together or shall we part". Norma's emotional acting is wonderful and gives the film a higher standard than the plot, with other less capable actors, would.Of course there is the happy ending but not before some exciting action sequences, involving a nasty storm and the phrase "missing - presumed drowned".