Week-End Marriage (1932)

Week-End Marriage (also released as Working Wives) is a 1932 First National picture that combines comedy with romantic melodrama.

Ken (Norman Foster) and Lola (Loretta Young) are young and in love and they’d like to get married but Ken doesn’t earn much at his job, not enough to support a wife.

Now Ken has been offered a business opportunity but it would mean two years in South America. He tells Lola that he’ll work hard and make plenty of money so that when he returns they can marry. Lola is devastated. She doesn’t want to wait for two years.

Lola’s sister-in-law Agnes (Aline MacMahon) is convinced that Lola just hasn’t tried hard enough to persuade Ken to marry her. And that Lola hasn’t been clever enough. You don’t just wait for a man to propose. You make him propose, in such a way that he thinks it’s his idea.

This leads to a very funny scene in which Lola puts Agnes’s teachings into practice.

There’s also the question of whether Lola should give up her job. Ken wants her to. Lola doesn’t think they can survive on Ken’s salary, and eventually persuades him to let her keep her job.

Lola’s career prospers while Ken’s goes down the gurgler. Ken cannot cope with the idea of being supported by his wife. The marriage becomes rather rocky.

Lola is offered a great job in St Louis. She’d be a fool to turn it down and she takes it. Ken stays in New York and he’s well and truly on the downhill slide.

Lola meets Peter Acton (George Brent) in St Louis. Peter is charming and successful and he’s crazy about her. He is definitely interested in marrying her.

Peter is not a scoundrel. He’s a really nice guy. He couldn’t help falling in love with Lola but he doesn’t try to push her. He just hopes that eventually she’ll realise that Ken is a loser and divorce him and marry Peter.

Then something happens in New York which puts Lola in the position of having to choose between the two men.

Loretta Young looks gorgeous (and wears some stunning gowns) and she’s adorable and funny. She gave so many great performances in the pre-code era and she’s excellent here with her star quality very evident.

For some reason lot of people don’t seem to like George Brent. I have no idea why. Perhaps he didn’t have a huge acting range but in the right roles I’ve always thought he was fine, and he certainly had charisma and charm to burn.

Aline MacMahon goes close to stealing the picture. She’s very funny and it’s a nicely nuanced performance - Agnes is feisty and smart and worldly and knows how to get what she wants but her intentions are good and she’s actually a kind generous woman.

Norman Foster as Ken is the weak link but it’s only fair to say that it’s a very unrewarding part. Perhaps another actor could have given a livelier performance but Ken is supposed to be a very passive guy who just never learns to take charge of his life.

The only real sign that this is a pre-code movie is that while Lola is in St Louis Ken finds another woman and they are very obviously cohabiting, and no unfavourable judgments are made on this situation. There’s also a scene that suggests that Lola and Ken actually have a sexual relationship - once the Production Code came in in 1934 any hint that married couples have sex was forbidden.

If you have a look at some of the online reviews you’ll find that this is a movie that has many modern viewers foaming at the mouth with rage. It’s actually a movie that tries to deal seriously with an important issue - the difficulties a woman faces in trying to combine a successful career with a successful marriage. The fact that the movie doesn’t offer the ideologically correct 2020s answer to this question seems to outrage a lot of people. I find it amusing that people will actually get angry at a 90-year-old movie.

Week-End Marriage has some genuinely amusing moments and takes the problems faced by its characters quite seriously. Recommended.