SYNOPSICS
The Lady Objects (1938) is a English movie. Erle C. Kenton has directed this movie. Gloria Stuart,Lanny Ross,Joan Marsh,Roy Benson are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1938. The Lady Objects (1938) is considered one of the best Drama,Music,Romance movie in India and around the world.
Ann Adams and William Hayward get married and she has a secretary's job in a law office, while finishing her schooling, and she soon makes junior partner and is just a brilliant lawyer. Meanwhile, hubby has a mechanized draftsman job and and acts like a mechanical person...except when he sings. He gets fed up with Ann turning their home into a bar-associate club where all the lawyers argue cases out of court, and he drops out and drops in at a nightclub and gets a job as a singer, and makes more money than when he was draftsman in an architect's office....and begins to imply that Ann should now be content with being a housewife, and Ann is having none of that. Later, she and her lawyer friends drop in at the club where William is singing, and she sees William getting vamped by one of the girl entertainers, gets sore and walks out..after insulting William. And..so they part and William gets an apartment and then a girl is found dead in his apartment, having accidentally strangled ...
Same Director
The Lady Objects (1938) Reviews
A nice surprise
As a wife's (Gloria Stuart) career goes up and up, her husband's (Lanny Ross) goes down, down, but when he's accused of murder she comes to his defense. Interesting acknowledgment, for 1938, that a woman can in fact have a successful career -- and much a healthier viewpoint than that of Woman of the Year four years later, for instance -- but the authenticity is compromised by Lanny Ross's details: he's an ex-halfback who leaves his architecture firm to become a nightclub crooner. Yeah, right, there are lots of those. Nice work from Gloria Stuart -- she has an enjoyable scene in which she wins a case through a bit of chicanery -- and the Oscar-nominated tune is pleasant.
You're the witness ..you decide. I'm not fully convinced.
A lady lawyer in the late 1930's deals with the conflicts her career brings to her marriage to a factory worker who becomes a fairly popular nightclub singer. Her success takes them from a small apartment to a mansion, and without him bringing in the book of the dough, their conflicts begin to grow. Gloria Stuart, much later on regaining fame as the old Rose in the 1997 Best Picture Winner "Titanic", plays the strong-willed lady lawyer who finds out that happiness in career doesn't necessarily mix with happiness in life. The husband is played by Lanny Ross who had a singing career in a few movies and on radio in the 1930's and 40's. He takes up with alcoholic nightclub singer Joan Marsh who drinks herself to death, and circumstantial evidence has him put on trial for murder. What happens next becomes pretty predictable, with Stuart stepping up to defend him, blaming herself in a confession that will cause some viewers to roll their eyes. This old-fashioned marital drama has a few songs with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, one of which got an Oscar nomination but is forgotten today. there are also a few specialty scenes of a bizarre magic act that stops the drama cold. Stuart is fine but the script really doesn't give much opportunity to develop her or Ross's characters beyond basic details. The affair with Marsh is thrown in so fast and her alcoholism dealt with so abruptly that it really doesn't take time to create a believable conflict. While the photography and art direction are pretty good, it's not enough to make this anything more then a cliched, formula women's picture, and second-rate at that.
Charming musical drama, with pro and anti-feminist statements
While this 1938 Columbia film is usually described as a drama, with 7 featured songs dispersed throughout the film, I submit it should be described as a musical drama. It's essentially a remake(nearly an exact copy) of the 1933 "Ann Carver's Profession", except that it has more and different songs, and the infidelity angle is toned down to please the censors. It's the story of a young couple, in which the man(Lanny Ross, as Bill Hayward) becomes dissatisfied with his marriage, because his wife(Gloria Stuart, as Ann) has achieved a measure of public recognition for her rise from secretary of a law firm to a top ranking lawyer. In contrast, he feels his public recognition has slipped from being the star football player at his school to being a so so draftsman at an architectural firm. He feels he has become Mr. Ann Hayward. and feels neglected as a spouse because of Ann's increasingly heavy workload. Bill has a good singing voice and memory for lyrics, thus decides to scrap his architectural job to be a nightclub singer, which he feels gives him more public recognition. However, this creates even more of a problem that they see little of each other, and he cannot accompany her to evening social events. Eventually, Bill moves out, and in with a boozy female singer(Joan Marsh as June Lane). She loses her job, and drinks more, creating friction with Bill. One evening, she passes out from drink, and bizarrely is strangled by her long necklace, which catches on the armchair as she falls. Bill is mostly blamed for murdering her, although the evidence is all circumstantial. In court, things are not going his way, until Ann, rejected by Bill as his council, takes a stand, saying that what the prosecuting attorney says about Bill is mostly lies. She blames herself for the breakup of their marriage, by being too ambitious in her profession, neglecting him. She has decided the perks she has gotten from her recent fame weren't worth the cost in private happiness. This is a warning to women, in general, not to take up a profession that will consume their private lives, unless they are willing to remain single and uncommitted. It's also a warning of the difficulty of taking up a profession that is traditionally only practiced by men. This was later explored in "Calamity Jane" and "Anne Get Your Gun", for example. Thus, there are both pro and anti-messages for married women working out of the home. Incidentally, in the Soundtracks section of this site, it's erroneously stated that Lanny Ross sang all of the songs. Actually, Joan Marsh(June) sang 2 numbers: "Sky High" and "Naughty, Naughty". These 2 songs were composed by Milton Drake, whereas all the songs that Lanny sang were composed by Ben Oakland and Oscar Hammerstein II. These include "That Week in Paris", "When Your in the Room", "A Mist is Over the Moon" "Victory Song", and "Home, in Your Arms". Incidentally, "Home, in Your Arms" was the last to be sung, appropriate when Ann and Bill had made up. Roy Benson(George) serves as orchestra leader and also does a few magic tricks while on the podium: quite a unique combination! I much enjoyed this film, and you can see it at YouTube.
Mis-matched careers cause marriage struggle.
Ann Adams Hayward(Gloria Stuart)marries her sweetheart William Hayward(Lanny Ross). The former college football star struggles being an architect, while Ann's career escalates from secretary to criminal justice lawyer. The two separate and William begins making extra money as a night club singer. When he is wrongly accused of murder, Ann bails him out of jail and defends him in court. Some powerful music in this drama like "A Mist Over the Moon", "When You Are In The Room", "Sky High" and "Naughty, Naughty". Erle C. Kenton directs. Other players include: Joan Marsh, Robert Paige, Roy Benson, Arthur Loft, Jan Buckingham and Pierre Watkins.