Main Cast: Gary Cooper, Anna Sten, Helen Vinson, Ralph Bellamy, Sig Rumann
Release Year: 1935
Country: US
Run Time: 84 minutes
Plot
In this Samuel Goldwyn production directed by King Vidor, the studio's intent was to make Russian-born Anna Sten a star, but it didn't succeed. Sten plays Manya Nowak, a Polish farm girl attracted to Tony Barrett (Gary Cooper), a novelist with writer's block who has retreated to a Connecticut farmhouse to find his muse. Barrett's wife Dora (Helen Vinson) misses the city and returns there, while Tony decides to use Manya as a character in his next novel. They become friends, and Tony learns that her straightlaced father Jan (Sigfried Rumann) has betrothed Manya to Fredrik Sobieski (Ralph Bellamy), whom she does not love. Manya and Tony spend a chaste night together when a blizzard shuts them in. Her father drags her home and demands that she marry Fredrik immediately. Many arguments and disagreements ensue. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Review
Notable as the third film in which producer Sam Goldwyn tried to make a star out of Russian actress Anna Sten, The Wedding Night has enough fringe benefits in its credits-Gary Cooper, director King Vidor, cinematographer Gregg Toland-to merit a look. Sten is in truth not bad, though certainly no Garbo or Dietrich, the actresses whose exoticism and allure Goldwyn was hoping to replicate in his "discovery." Her thick accent, which, according to Goldwyn biographer Scott Berg, drove Goldwyn to at least one on-set fit of apoplexy, is at least justified here by her role as Manya Nowak, the daughter of a Polish immigrant farmer (Sig Rumann). The script has dissipated writer Tony Barrett (Gary Cooper) falling in love with Manya after she becomes the muse who unblocks his latent talent. Barrett and his boozy wife (played wittily by Helen Vinson) are a couple of good-time swells when they're making the New York social scene, but send them into the country and, well, at least one of them wakes up and smells the roses. Manya is a second-generation daughter caught between the conventions of the old country and her sense that in America her choices should be less limited. But she is also virtuous; she can't consider a romance with Tony as long as he's married, though she's attracted to him as a sensitive alternative to her clod of an arranged husband, Frederik Sobieski, played by the dependable Ralph Bellamy. The Wedding Night also marks another film in which Vidor examines the virtues of rural living (see Our Daily Bread and Hallelujah! for comparison). Give Goldwyn credit: already taking a chance by foisting Sten again on an indifferent public, he didn't take the crowd-pleasing way out in resolving the story's conflicts. Not surprisingly, the film finished Sten's career in Hollywood for good. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Esther Dale - Kaise Nowak; Walter Brennan - Bill Jenkins; Miami Alvarez; Agnes Anderson - Helena; Jay Belasco - Party Guest; Robert Bolder - Doctor; Milla Davenport - Grandmother; Jay Eaton; Constance Howard; George Magrill; Alphonse Martell - Waiter; George Meeker - Gilly; Richard Powell - Truck Driver; Harry Semels; Bernard Siegel; Leonid Snegoff - Mr. Sobieski; Auguste Tollaire; Hilda Vaughn - Hezzie Jones; Eleanor Wesselhoeft - Mrs. Sobieski; Douglas Wood - Heywood; Otto Yamaoka - Taka; Dave Wengren; Violet Axzelle - Frederica Sobieski
While working on a novel in his country home in Connecticut, married writer Tony Barrett (Cooper) becomes attracted to Manya (Sten), the daughter of a neighboring farmer. Manya is unhappily engaged to Frederik (Bellamy). Due to a snowstorm, Tony and Manya are trapped together in his house overnight. The next day, Manya's father insists her wedding to Frederik take place in spite of Manya's misgivings. Drunkenness and jealousy result in tragedy at the wedding reception that night.
References
"Screen Notes", The New York Times, March 15, 1935.
"Second Thoughts on "Wedding Night" ", The New York Times, March 24, 1935.
"Critic's Choice: New DVD's" by Dave Kehr, The New York Times, May 22, 2007.
