PRIVATE LIVES (1931) B/W 85m dir: Sidney Franklin

w/Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Reginald Denny, Una Merkel, Jean Hersholt, George Davis

Americanizing Noel Coward's comedy works surprisingly well. Shearer is up to the repartee and works well with Montgomery. Deft direction from the normally plodding Franklin compounds the surprises.

From The Movie Guide: "PRIVATE LIVES is one of those enduring scripts that can't be hurt, even by ordinary actors; in the case of this film, the acting is excellent, and the result is charming. Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery play Amanda and Elyot, a once-married couple who have divorced and wed other mates. He's now married to Sibyl (Merkel) and she to Victor (Denny). Both Sibyl and Victor are conservative sorts, devoid of the joy and madness that once attracted Amanda and Elyot to one another. By a coincidence, both couples are honeymooning at the French hotel where Amanda and Elyot had spent their first two weeks of marriage years before. ... Noel Coward wrote and starred in PRIVATE LIVES onstage with Gertrude Lawrence in a 1930 London production, then brought it to New York with Laurence Olivier and Jill Esmond in the secondary roles. Producer Irving Thalberg, Shearer's husband, made a film record of this production to aid cast and crew in bringing its unique flavor to the cinema. One of the film's joys is that it achieves a faithful reproduction of the original without seeming a mere copy. The actors don't convince as British (only Denny was), but that really doesn't matter. Shearer and Montgomery attack their roles with such zest and comic elan that we don't miss the spirits of Noel and Gerty hanging around. Opening up the play for a spot of mountain climbing (and a very pre-Code sleeping scene), director Franklin does a fine job in preventing his film from becoming stagy."