All of Me

Frederick March loves Miriam Hopkins and she loves him. He wants to get married. She thinks marriage kills love. He wants to go work on Boulder Dam, but she wants her life in the East, so she tells him she's pregnant. He believes her, and is ready to change everything, until she confesses she is not... and he walks out in disgust that she would lie about this.

The story shifts to show another couple, George Raft and Helen Mack; they want to get married, but he has a record, and they don't want the baby to have to deal with a jailbird father. Then each of them wind up in jail....

Released in the last few months before the Code became enforced, this is as pre-code as a story can get, albeit one without naked women. Written by William Buchman and Thomas Mitchell, it's a meditation on the destruction that overwhelming love can yield. Although director James Flood handles this briskly and efficiently, he doesn't bring much to it; Raft and Miss Mack, however, are terrific in their desperation.

If you mention Thomas Mitchell to me, I think of his great performances in the late 1930s and 1940s. He was a wonderful character actor, who could bring a realistic comic touch to any role. I was surprised to realize he has six writing credits for movies, although five of them are for versions of his Nroadway play LITTLE ACCIDENTS.