Joan Bennett realizes there is a problem with "The Main I Married" in this 1940 film also starring Francis Lederer, Otto Kruger, Anna Sten, and Lloyd Nolan.
Bennett plays Carol Hoffman, an editor, happily married to a German, Eric Hoffman (Lederer), for 8 years. They have a son named Ricky (Johnny Russell) and live in New York City. In 1938, Eric learns that he needs to return to Germany to take care of some business concerning his father's factory, so Carol and Ricky come along.
Eric's feet no sooner touch Deutschland that he begins to take up the Nazi fervor, aided and abetted by an old friend, Greta (Sten). Carol is vocal about not liking what she sees, and Eric keeps telling her not to listen to propaganda.
Finally, Carol realizes the truth about her husband, and with the help of an American journalist covering Berlin (Nolan), she decides to leave Germany with Ricky.
Good movie, great cast, solid performances. I don't know what the atmosphere in 1938 was but somehow I don't think I would have been interested in a trip to Germany. And frankly, Carol had good dose of denial about Eric or she would have left shortly after they arrived.
Otto Kruger is excellent as Eric's father, who feels as if he's lived too long, and Sten gives a strong performance as the unlikable Nazi Freda. Lederer has long been a favorite actor of mine, and here he's handsome and charming as a man ultimately gripped by nationalism.
Bennett is a beautiful, glamorous American woman who realizes how bad things are, and she gives a strong performance, brave in her disapproval and determined not to expose her child to it.
Irving Pichel does a good job of directing, and there is actual footage of Germany in 1938 throughout the film.
The movie was released in August of 1940, so it was probably made after war was declared in Europe, which was in September 1939. The film The Mortal Storm, released in June 1940, talks of the German oppression but never mentions Jews or Nazis. It seems that the studio moguls wanted America to enter the war, and promoted the cause with the films they produced, becoming a little bolder with each film.
