1936 Directed by William A. Seiter
A writer and an actress meet and marry without really knowing each other--they are even unaware that both bride and groom are equally famous. During the honeymoon, all hell breaks loose as a comedic war of the sexes leads inevitably to love.
"What's the matter with marriage?"
"It's so unimportant!"
Women Film Editors #12: Dorothy Spencer
As was true last year when I watched the 1941 double feature of Back Street and The Lady Eve, I like to pay tribute to two of my favorite actors, Margaret Sullavan and Henry Fonda, on their shared birthday of May 16. What makes The Moon's Our Home particularly interesting, however, are the unusual circumstances of their joint appearance as lovebirds in this Paramount rom-com: Sullavan and Fonda, who met while performing in Harvard's University Players theater company, had already been married from December 1931 until their divorce in March 1933. I knew that the pair had remained on friendly terms even with remarriage to multiple…
margaret sullavan was talented, beautiful had great comedic timing and y'all still ignore her. i'm sueing
I fell in love with Margaret Sullavan after watching The Shop Around the Corner. She was charming and adorable in that film. Too bad she didn't have those qualities in this one. In fact, she annoyed me from the start with her child-like tantrums and over dramatic acting. *** She reminded me of another actress who I avoid.
Another problem with this movie was the lack of a real romance. I've been running into this lately with a handful of films. The scriptwriters seem to have forgotten the difference between verbal sparring and sharing playful banter. Mean-spirited does not equal flirting or sexual tension for me. Also, there is a lack of sweetness. Or, if it is there, it lasts…
Sullavan and Fonda share an indomitable magnetism that ostentatiously triumphs on screen even in spite of their failed marriage in THE MOON'S OUR HOME. Fortuitous happenstance sees the paths of two flighty, flippant luminaries -- an actress and an author -- cross amidst the fan-bridled bedlam of New York. Sullavan's Cherry Chester is a petulant and spirited young woman, governed by the reactionary extremes of her emotional whims —and, to her great chagrin, has been lured to the city under false pretenses. Fonda is an accomplished author, in town for a book signing. Though both catch wind of the other's presence (which they regard with equal disdain), they end up meeting when both are incognito. A playful courtship sees their elopement to New Hampshire's White Mountains, where ephemeral marital bliss crumbles under an avalanche of amusing revelations. The love-hate histrionics make for great sexual synecdoches: pulsing, passionate, and obsessive. A great quick watch that's enjoyably digestible.
Wow, was Henry Fonda cute. And when I see him in these old films, you can see that Jane looks just like him.
In "The Moon's Our Home" from 1936, Fonda stars with his ex-wife, Margaret Sullavan, in this delightful comedy. Sullivan is Cherry Chester, a brat of a movie star who is summoned by her grandmother so that she can announce her engagement to someone she doesn't want to marry.
At the same time, a popular author, Anthony Amberton (Fonda) is being chased around town by people - women - wanting him to sign his latest book. Anxious to escape them, he jumps into a carriage transporting Cherry.
The two hit it off, but he leaps off of the…
Extra stars for Margaret Sullavan's giggle and a New Year's scene that pays faultless tribute to the best of John M. Stahl.
Credit: Additional dialogue by Dorothy Parker
Guesses:
"marshmallow faced movie stars make me sick"
"-Horace is a monument of responsibility. -So is Grant's Tomb, but who wants to marry that?"
"You're rather attractive in an elementary sort of way"
"bogus blonde with face like a French pastry"
Fonda and Margaret Sullavan, who married and divorced as young stage actors, marry and split up on-screen in this engaging little farce directed by star-whisperer William A. Seiter. Along with the Parker-aided dialogue are a supporting cast of distinctive personalities: Walter Brennan as deaf justice of the peace, Wicked Witch Margaret Hamilton as knotted up cottage spinster and Charles Butterworth as the milquetoast cousin Sullavan is pushed to marry.
Low-key and lovely.
Routine screwball comedy with great actors. Margaret Hamilton tries hard, maybe a little too hard to make the superficial farce work, but Henry Fonda was out of his element with this material. Plenty of little things to like, but never rounded enough to feel like one was watching something fantastic. Never dull though.
Haven't I seen you somewhere before?
I'm the girl you married once.
I knew it. I never forget a face.
i want to be maggie and i want to be maggie’s best friend i want to take her out of the screen and give her a little kiss on the forehead just for making me so happy
Give me the simple primitive woman with a small high chest.
Enjoyable screwball with Margaret Sullivan tearing it up as the independent woman who will not give up her career, before or after marriage - against the grain of the standard screwball scenario.
A few laughs, but it’s the strong female lead (and a script that supports that) which is really on show here.
Ended rather abruptly and bizarrely though. (Of course an independent woman who wants a career after marriage needs to be put in a straight jacket - WTAF!!!)
I’ve been wanting to watch this for quite a while now and it turned out being a holiday movie so I’m extremely glad I saved it until now.
Our two leads, Margaret Sullavan and Henry Fonda, are thrown in the middle of this with not much material to work with. The screenplay is not strong, the plot, story and direction are extremely silly, so we hand to them the duty of saving this purely with their chemistry and with the physical comedy (which is extremely present in it). To me, they did a fabulous job, not only they feel very natural together, probably due to the fact that they were married not long before this so they were past the…
