The Right to Romance (1933)

The Right to Romance is a 1933 RKO pre-code melodrama.

Dr Peggy Simmons (Ann Harding) is one of the nation’s top plastic surgeons. She has achieved everything she could wish for career-wise. She has however started to realise that she’s not just a doctor, she’s a woman. She wants more out of life. She wants to dance and wear slinky dresses. She wants to smell of perfume, not ether. She wants fun. She wants romance. A woman has a right to romance.

Romance was already on offer, from fellow surgeon Dr Helmuth Heppling (Nils Asther), but she had never realised it. And the truth is that while Heppie (everyone calls him Heppie) is a seriously nice guy he is not the kind of man who is likely to sweep a woman off her feet. And she really wants to be swept off her feet.

She turns her back on her career and heads to California. She becomes a social butterfly. And she meets Bobby Preble (Robert Young). He’s more to her taste. He is irresponsible, reckless, handsome, dashing and very romantic. He’s a daredevil pilot. Sweeping women off their feet is exactly the sort of thing that he does, and does well. Peggy falls for him and falls for him hard. Being head-over-heels in love is a new experience for Peggy but she likes it. She wanted romance and she’s found it.

It’s all seems so perfect. Peggy and Bobby are crazy about each other. Marriage is the obvious next step.

There are however some potential problems. Peggy and Bobby are from different worlds. Peggy is from the serious grown-up world in which people take responsibility for their actions. And she enjoys being a doctor. Devoting herself to helping people is what she does. Peggy wants a husband who takes marriage very seriously.

Bobby has never taken responsibility for anything in his entire life. He comes from the world of pleasure and indulgence. He’s very good-natured but he’s just an overgrown kid. Love, romance and marriage are fine but they’re not things to be taken too seriously.

There’s also the complication of another woman, Lee Joyce (Sari Maritza), who rather thought that Bobby was going to be hers. She is from Bobby’s world. She doesn’t care how irresponsible Bobby is. She doesn’t mind that he’s a playboy.

And there’s the Heppie complication. He hasn’t given up loving Peggy. And Heppie is from Peggy’s world, the world of adult responsibility.

What follows is all rather inevitable. Peggy and Bobby can’t help being the people they are.

This is unabashed melodrama so you have to accept a few plot contrivances. That’s how melodrama works.

How pre-code is it? It’s not overly pre-code but there is a reluctance to judge people too harshly or to assume that every transgression must be punished, whereas the Production Code would have insisted on punishment. There’s a plot element towards the end that would have been handled much more crudely under the Production Code.

Ann Harding has the really tricky role. She’s the serious-minded good girl but it’s important that we don’t pity her or think of her as a prig. Harding does a fine job and manages to make her genuinely likeable.

Harding was a major star at the time but is now all but forgotten, which is rather sad.

In 1933 Robert Young was perfect casting as a reckless playboy and he’s amusing and charming.

The Right to Romance is perhaps not quite an overlooked gem but it’s still pretty good and it takes a grown-up look at complex emotional issues. It’s a forgotten movie that is worth rediscovery. Highly recommended.

This movie is included in the five-movie Spanish Verdice Pre-Code RKO Volume 2 DVD boxed set. All five films are in English with removable Spanish subtitles and the transfers are fine.