I Take This Woman (1940 film)

Last updated
I Take This Woman
Itakethiswomanposter.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Written by Ben Hecht (uncredited)
Screenplay byJames Kevin MacGuinness
Based on"A New York Cinderella"
by Charles MacArthur
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography Harold Rosson
Edited by George Boemler
Music by
Production
company
Distributed by Loew's Inc.
Release date
  • February 2, 1940 (1940-02-02)
Running time
98 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1,271,000 [1]
Box office$1,435,000 [1]
Advertisement in Film Daily, 1940 Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr in 'I Take This Woman', 1940.jpg
Advertisement in Film Daily , 1940

I Take This Woman is a 1940 American drama film directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starring Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr. Based on the short story "A New York Cinderella" by Charles MacArthur, the film is about a young woman who attempted suicide in reaction to a failed love affair. The doctor who marries her attempts to get her to love him by abandoning his clinic services to the poor to become a physician to the rich so he can pay for her expensive lifestyle. [2]

Contents

Plot

On the way to New York in a ship, a famous psychiatrist, Dr. Karl Decker (Spencer Tracy), sees a young girl, Georgi (Hedy Lamarr) attempting suicide by jumping from the top because of a failed romance with Phil Mayberry (Kent Taylor). The doctor rescues her and makes her understand how to live by doing real work.

After reaching New York, she visits the doctor and joins him in his practice at a clinic for the poor. They fall in love and marry. The doctor leaves his clinic and joins a famous hospital so that he can earn more money to support his wife in style. He becomes highly successful, and the owner takes him as a business partner.

Meanwhile, Phil pesters her to renew their love affair, saying that he still loves her. She finally meets with him at his apartment and asks him to stop disturbing her, realizing that she loves Karl instead. Before Georgi and Karl can depart for a belated honeymoon, Karl learns that Georgi and Phil had met in his apartment. Believing that she still loves Phil, Karl breaks off his relationship with Georgi in spite of her protest.

An important call comes from the hospital regarding a suicidal case of a young girl. Karl rushes to the hospital, but the girl dies in spite of his efforts. On the death certificate, he writes "suicide," but the father of the girl opposes him, wanting to avoid any scandal. Karl will not listen to him, and finally decides to quit working for the hospital and travel to China to do research. Before his departure, he visits his old clinic. His former patients are pleased, having heard from Georgi that he was planning to open the clinic again. But he refuses in spite of their disappointment. When some of the children, whose lives he saved, entreat him to reopen the clinic, he relents at last. Georgi asks, "Can I stay too?" Karl happily agrees, and the film ends as they kiss.

Cast

Production notes

Box office

According to MGM records the film earned $907,000 in the US and Canada and $528,000 elsewhere resulting in a loss of $325,000. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victor Fleming</span> American film director, cinematographer, and producer

Victor Lonzo Fleming was an American film director, cinematographer, and producer. His most popular films were Gone with the Wind, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director, and The Wizard of Oz. Fleming has those same two films listed in the top 10 of the American Film Institute's 2007 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hedy Lamarr</span> Austrian-born American inventor and actress (1914–2000)

Hedy Lamarr was an Austro-Hungarian-born American actress and technology inventor. She was a film star during Hollywood's Golden Age.

<i>Ecstasy</i> (film) 1933 erotic film directed by Gustav Machatý

Ecstasy is a 1933 Czech erotic romantic drama film directed by Gustav Machatý and starring Hedy Lamarr, Aribert Mog, and Zvonimir Rogoz. Machatý won the award for Best Director for this film at the 1934 Venice Film Festival.

<i>Algiers</i> (film) 1938 American drama film

Algiers is a 1938 American drama film directed by John Cromwell and starring Charles Boyer, Sigrid Gurie, and Hedy Lamarr. Written by John Howard Lawson, the film is about a notorious French jewel thief hiding in the labyrinthine native quarter of Algiers known as the Casbah. Feeling imprisoned by his self-imposed exile, he is drawn out of hiding by a beautiful French tourist who reminds him of happier times in Paris. The Walter Wanger production was a remake of the successful 1937 French film Pépé le Moko, which derived its plot from the Henri La Barthe novel of the same name.

<i>Tortilla Flat</i> (film) 1942 film by Victor Fleming

Tortilla Flat is a 1942 American romantic comedy film directed by Victor Fleming and starring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, John Garfield, Frank Morgan, Akim Tamiroff, and Sheldon Leonard based on the 1935 novel of the same name by John Steinbeck. Frank Morgan received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his poignant portrayal of The Pirate.

<i>Boom Town</i> (film) 1940 American Western film

Boom Town is a 1940 American Western film starring Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, and Hedy Lamarr, and directed by Jack Conway. The supporting cast features Frank Morgan, Lionel Atwill, and Chill Wills. A story written by James Edward Grant in Cosmopolitan magazine entitled "A Lady Comes to Burkburnett" provided the inspiration for the film. The film was produced and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Loder (actor)</span> British actor (1898–1988)

John Loder was established as a British film actor in Germany and Britain before migrating to the United States in 1928 for work in the new talkies. He worked in Hollywood for two periods, becoming an American citizen in 1947. After living also in Argentina, he became a naturalized British citizen in 1959.

<i>H. M. Pulham, Esq.</i> 1941 film by King Vidor

H. M. Pulham, Esq. is a 1941 American drama film directed by King Vidor and starring Hedy Lamarr, Robert Young, and Ruth Hussey. Based on the novel H. M. Pulham, Esq. by John P. Marquand, the film is about a middle-aged businessman who has lived a conservative life according to the routine conventions of society, but who still remembers the beautiful young woman who once brought him out of his shell. Vidor co-wrote the screenplay with his wife, Elizabeth Hill Vidor. The film features an early uncredited appearance by Ava Gardner. In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, as part of a retrospective dedicated to King Vidor's career.

<i>White Cargo</i> 1942 film by Richard Thorpe

White Cargo is a 1942 American drama film starring Hedy Lamarr and Walter Pidgeon, and directed by Richard Thorpe. Released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it is based on the 1923 London and Broadway hit play by Leon Gordon, which was in turn adapted from the 1912 novel Hell's Playground by Ida Vera Simonton. The play had already been made into a British part-talkie, also titled White Cargo, with Maurice Evans in 1930. The 1942 film, unlike the play, begins in what was then the present-day, before unfolding in flashback.

<i>My Favorite Spy</i> (1951 film) 1951 film by Norman Z. McLeod

My Favorite Spy is a 1951 American comedy spy film directed by Norman Z. McLeod and starring Bob Hope, Hedy Lamarr and Francis L. Sullivan. It was produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures and forms the third of a loose trilogy featuring Hope including My Favorite Blonde and My Favorite Brunette.

I Take This Woman may refer to:

<i>I Take This Woman</i> (1931 film) 1931 film

I Take This Woman is a 1931 American pre-Code romance film directed by Marion Gering and starring Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard.

<i>Dishonored Lady</i> 1947 film by Robert Stevenson, Hunt Stromberg, Jack Chertok

Dishonored Lady is a 1947 American film noir crime film directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Hedy Lamarr, Dennis O'Keefe and John Loder. It is based on the 1930 play Dishonored Lady by Edward Sheldon and Margaret Ayer Barnes. Lamarr and Loder were married when they made the film, but they divorced later in 1947.

<i>Her Highness and the Bellboy</i> 1945 film by Richard Thorpe, Gladys Lehman, Richard Connell, Charles Walters

Her Highness and the Bellboy is a 1945 American romantic comedy film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Hedy Lamarr, Robert Walker, and June Allyson. Written by Richard Connell and Gladys Lehman, the film is about a beautiful European princess who travels to New York City to find the newspaper columnist she fell in love with six years earlier. At her posh New York hotel, she is mistaken for a maid by a kind-hearted bellboy. Charmed by his confusion, the princess insists that he become her personal attendant, unaware that he has fallen in love with her. Her Highness and the Bellboy was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the United States on July 11, 1945.

<i>The Strange Woman</i> 1946 film by Edgar George Ulmer

The Strange Woman is a 1946 American historical melodrama film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and starring Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders and Louis Hayward. It is based on the 1941 novel of the same title by Ben Ames Williams. The screenplay was written by Ulmer and Hunt Stromberg, Originally released by United Artists, the film is now in the public domain.

<i>Picture Mommy Dead</i> 1966 film by Bert I. Gordon

Picture Mommy Dead is a 1966 American psychological horror film directed by Bert I. Gordon and starring Don Ameche, Martha Hyer, Susan Gordon, and Zsa Zsa Gabor. It follows a young girl who, after being released from a psychiatric hospital following her mother's death, begins to experience strange events in the family's mansion.

<i>Lets Live a Little</i> 1948 film by Richard Wallace

Let's Live a Little is a 1948 American romantic comedy film directed by Richard Wallace and starring Hedy Lamarr, Robert Cummings and Anna Sten. Written by Howard Irving Young, Edmund L. Hartmann, Albert J. Cohen, and Jack Harvey, the film is about an overworked advertising executive who is being pursued romantically by his former fiancée, a successful perfume magnate, who is also the ad agency's largest client. While visiting a new client—a psychiatrist and author—to discuss a proposed ad campaign, his life becomes further complicated when the new client turns out to be a beautiful woman, who decides to treat his nervous condition.

<i>Storm in a Water Glass</i> (1931 film) 1931 film

Storm in a Water Glass is a 1931 Austrian-German comedy film directed by Georg Jacoby and starring Hansi Niese, Renate Müller and Paul Otto. The film is based on the play of the same title by Bruno Frank, later adapted into the British film Storm in a Teacup. The film is known by the alternative title The Flower Woman of Lindenau. It is notable, in part, for the small role played by Hedy Lamarr in her second film. The film's art direction was by Hans Jacoby.

<i>Lady of the Tropics</i> 1939 film by Jack Conway

Lady of the Tropics is a 1939 American drama film directed by Jack Conway, starring Robert Taylor, Hedy Lamarr, and Joseph Schildkraut.

<i>The Female Animal</i> 1958 film by Harry Keller

The Female Animal is a 1958 American CinemaScope drama film directed by Harry Keller and starring Hedy Lamarr, Jane Powell, Jan Sterling and George Nader.

References

  1. 1 2 3 The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
  2. Sandra Brennan (2011). "I Take This Woman (1940)". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times . Baseline & All Movie Guide. Archived from the original on June 4, 2011. Retrieved February 19, 2013.