Kept Husbands

A lot of times, studios didn't necessarily know what they had in their stars, so early in the stars' careers, they got put in a range of movies that seem odd looking back on things. Joel McCrea may be thought of now more for the westerns he did in the second half of his career, but early on he got some rather different stuff, such as Kept Husbands.

McCrea is second billed behind Dorothy Mackaill, who plays Dot Parker. Her father Arthur (Robert McWade) owns a steel mill, and even with a depression on -- not that it's mentioned in the movie -- he's still apparently making money hand over fist. One day he announces to his family that one of the employees saved several workers from an industrial accident, and that employee is going to get to come to the Parker mansion for dinner. Needless to say, everyone else thinks it's going to be a grand old time watching this poor hapless worker not be able to show any social graces, a sort of "rednecks in the mist" thing if you will.

Except that the employee in question is one Dick Brunton (Joel McCrea). He has dreams of becoming an engineer, helping to design industrial projects for the Parker mills' output. He was also an all-American football player back in college, in the days when football players were not necessarily the stereotypical "dumb jocks", all-Americans could come from places like the Ivy League, and society types would actually go to college football games. Dot notices the little football on Dick's watch chain, and puts two and two together. She also vows to her father that she's going to get married to Dick.

Dick, for his part, still lives with his mom (Mary Carr) because she needs the financial support; she's also taken in a boarder in the form of Dick's co-worker Hughie (Ned Sparks as the comic relief). Dick loves his mother and she's going to have good advice for both him and Dot later in the movie, but for now we only need know that she comes from much more modest circumstances, reminiscent of Thelma Ritter in The Mating Season so that we can see how big a gap there is between Dot and Dick.

But of course they get married. Dick is hoping to be able to take care of his wife on just his salary, especially considering that the lifestyle to which Dot had become accustomed would require them living on $50,000 a year in 1931 dollars. Her dad pays for the honeymoon, which involves taking the family yacht over to Europe and seeing all the great places, much to Dick's chagrin; he just wants to get back to his career and advancing that career.

When they do get back, to a home that Daddy gave to Dot, Dick's career does get advanced, but not in the way he'd like. He's bumped up to a vice-president's job which is probably more of a make-work job. Combined with all the social functions Dot wants Dick to attend, Dick doesn't seem to be getting much of anything done in the family business. When the opportunity to put over a bridge across the Mississippi using new materials and construnction techniques, Dick jumps at it, even though it's going to cause serious conflicts with Dot's social life.

McCrea and Mackaill both give adequate performances in Kept Husbands, and you wish there were a simpler way for the two of them to come to a meeting of minds, like before they actually got married. But this is the sort of material that I think I've seen done in a bunch of early 1930s movies. There's nothing new here, and nothing particularly special.

Although the DVD might make it look like a pre-Code, but it's only a movie made before July 1934; boundary-pushing stuff one normally thinks of when one thinks of a "pre-Code" movie. It's worth a watch for McCrea, and I'm glad it got a release on a box set and not just a Warner Archive standalone.