Main Cast: Norma Shearer, Chester Morris, Conrad Nagel, Robert Montgomery, Florence Eldridge
Release Year: 1930
Country: US
Run Time: 83 minutes
Plot
Norma Shearer earned an Academy Award for playing the not so gay divorcée in this pre-Code offering based, loosely, on Ex-Wife, a 1929 Ursula Parrott novel. Shearer is Jerry, a socialite who marries handsome Ted (Chester Morris) after a whirlwind courtship. But Ted is not exactly the faithful type and after three years of what she in her naïveté considered marital bliss, Jerry learns of his affair with Janice (Mary Doran). "It meant nothing," Ted assures her but Jerry is devastated and decides to investigate adultery for herself by sleeping with Ted's best friend, Don (Robert Montgomery). When she discovers that the old double-standard still applies, Jerry announces that henceforth Ted, and only Ted, is no longer welcome in her bed. After a string of lovers who mean little or nothing to her, Jerry falls for an old flame, Paul (Conrad Nagel), but when she understands the effect their affair has on Paul's poor disfigured wife, Dorothy (Helen Johnson, aka Judith Wood), Jerry returns to Ted, who still loves her despite it all. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Review
Recently The Divorcée, in general, and Norma Shearer’s performance, in particular, have garnered quite a bit of attention from an ever-increasing group of pre-Code devotees. But in order to find anything worthwhile in what, to all extent and purposes, is a rather stolid, and stolidly acted, marital drama, you will have to contend with all the trappings of early talkies -- including rather lah-di-dah "upper class" accents and a soundtrack that tends to drown out the more intimate details. Shearer is alternately delightfully wry and silly but her leading men, with the exception perhaps of a very young Robert Montgomery, make for less than exiting company, especially the charisma-deficient Conrad Nagel, who seems to have popped up in every other Hollywood drama of 1930. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Helene Millard - Mary; Robert Elliott - Bill; Mary Doran - Janice; Tyler Brooke - Hank; Zelda Sears - Hannah; George Irving - Dr. Bernard; Helen Johnson - Dorothy; Judith Wood - Dorothy
Chester Morris plays a roving husband who has a brief affair with another woman—and tells his wife it does not mean "a thing". When his wife, Norma Shearer, sets out to "settle the account" by having an affair with his best friend, the husband suddenly discovers that it might actually mean something after all.
Other movies with the same title were released in 1917, 1919 and 1969.
The Divorcee was released on DVD by Warner Home Video on March 8, 2008 (along with A Free Soul, also starring Norma Shearer), as one of five Pre-Code films in the "TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2" DVD box set.
The Silent Command •Heritage •Judge Not; or The Woman of Mona Diggings •Secret Love •The Crippled Hand •The Love Girl •Little Eve Edgarton •The Plow Girl •The Eagle's Wing (with Rufus Steele) •On Record •A Mormon Maid •The Primrose Ring •At First Sight •Princess Virtue •Face Value •The Bride's Awakening •Her Body in Bond •Modern Love •Danger, Go Slow •The Scarlet Shadow •The Delicious Little Devil •What Am I Bid? •Big Little Person •The Way of a Woman •The Miracle of Love
