Given the usual pedestal upon which mothers were placed by MGM head Louis Mayer, it’s all the more amazing that Mayer gave the go-ahead for Another Language. Louise Closser Hale plays a domineering matriarch who controls the lives of her grown, married sons, using a fabricated heart condition to keep them in line. Helen Hayes marries youngest son Robert Montgomery, only to sit by in mute horror as Mother exerts her authority over her timorous offspring at a weekly family get-together. At the end, only Hayes and Montgomery’s nephew John Beal have the courage to break the apron strings, but not without the formidable opposition of Monster Mom. Based on the Broadway play by Rose Franken, Another Language represented the screen debut of Margaret Hamilton, recreating the supporting role she’d played on stage.
Read More »
Tag Archives: Edward H. Griffith
Next Time We Love (1936) Edward H. Griffith, Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Ray Milland
In New York, the rookie newsman Christopher “Chris” Tyler dreams on becoming a famous journalist. When his girlfriend Cicely spends a couple of days with him, they decide to get married and Cicely leaves college. Chris’s best friend Tommy Abbott is his best man and becomes a family’s friend. Chris has his great chance when his editor Frank Carteret sends him to Rome assigned as a foreign correspondent. Cicely stays in New York with Tommy and does not tell to Chris that she is pregnant. When she delivers the baby Kit, Chris celebrates and loses a big scoop and his boss fires him. Chris falls in disgrace and the couple has economic difficulties; however Tommy lends money to Cicely and offers an opportunity on the stage as an actress. Cicely is hired and becomes successful and Chris is depressed with the situation. Cicely seeks out Frank Carteret and explains the situation, and he offers a job opportunity to Chris in Russia.
Read More »