Years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing this on the big screen at the Museum of Art in Los Angeles in a double-bill with "Jezebel". No, it wasn't a "Joan vs. Bette" festival, but a "the lady wore red" series, and in the case of these two films, the red was not captured because of black and white photography. While "Jezebel" is of course an all-time classic, "The Bride Wore Red" was considered at the time a box office disappointment in a period of Joan Crawford's career where repeat themes of films she'd already done lead her to be named on the list of "box office poison".
To see "The Bride Wore Red" today is to show what MGM stood for in its heyday: beautiful stars, glamorous clothes and exotic settings. In "The Bride Wore Red", she's a cabaret singer down on her luck who is given the good fortune by one of her customers (George Zucco) who, like Henry Higgins, thinks he can turn this sow's ear into a silk purse. Before you know it, she's heading to an exclusive hideaway for the wealthy in the Alps, and has gotten the attention of wealthy Robert Young, as well as local postman Franchot Tone. Young is already engaged to Lynne Carver, however, but Crawford is determined to bust that up. All seems to be going well until she puts on the garish red dress she's been saving up for the right occasion, something which shows her for who she really is.
Red, in high society, was apparently not a proper color for a nice young lady to wear, and indeed, the dress designed for Crawford is truly audacious and tacky. Everything else she wears, however, present her as more lady-like and of noble blood than she really is. Young's companions, Billie Burke (as a snooty contessa) and Reginald Owen (as Carver's father), can tell something's off with this seemingly "perfect" miss, and at a local social event (with practically every man in liederhosen), Crawford shows the truth of who she really is, down to earth and not at all uppity like the class she's trying to worm her way into.
Glamorous with a capital "G", "The Bride Wore Red" is one of the most entertaining of Joan's MGM films, even if at times, it is a bit like the top of an overly stuffed wedding cake. Director Dorothy Arzner went out of her way to make this as beautiful as possible, and for some audiences (particularly the critics) it must have been a little too much, having been overstuffed with recently released glossy MGM films like "Maytime" and "Rosalie" where at least the lovers got to sing rather than argue before the love scene arrived.
To see "The Bride Wore Red" today is to show what MGM stood for in its heyday: beautiful stars, glamorous clothes and exotic settings. In "The Bride Wore Red", she's a cabaret singer down on her luck who is given the good fortune by one of her customers (George Zucco) who, like Henry Higgins, thinks he can turn this sow's ear into a silk purse. Before you know it, she's heading to an exclusive hideaway for the wealthy in the Alps, and has gotten the attention of wealthy Robert Young, as well as local postman Franchot Tone. Young is already engaged to Lynne Carver, however, but Crawford is determined to bust that up. All seems to be going well until she puts on the garish red dress she's been saving up for the right occasion, something which shows her for who she really is.
Red, in high society, was apparently not a proper color for a nice young lady to wear, and indeed, the dress designed for Crawford is truly audacious and tacky. Everything else she wears, however, present her as more lady-like and of noble blood than she really is. Young's companions, Billie Burke (as a snooty contessa) and Reginald Owen (as Carver's father), can tell something's off with this seemingly "perfect" miss, and at a local social event (with practically every man in liederhosen), Crawford shows the truth of who she really is, down to earth and not at all uppity like the class she's trying to worm her way into.
Glamorous with a capital "G", "The Bride Wore Red" is one of the most entertaining of Joan's MGM films, even if at times, it is a bit like the top of an overly stuffed wedding cake. Director Dorothy Arzner went out of her way to make this as beautiful as possible, and for some audiences (particularly the critics) it must have been a little too much, having been overstuffed with recently released glossy MGM films like "Maytime" and "Rosalie" where at least the lovers got to sing rather than argue before the love scene arrived.