We're Not Married! (1952)

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Copyright 8 July 1952 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy: 11 July 1952. U.S. release: 10 July 1952. U.K. release: September 1952. Australian release: 29 January 1953. Sydney opening at the Mayfair. 85 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A Justice of the Peace discovers that five marriages he performed two and a half years ago are not legally valid.NOTES: Suggested by the 1911 stage play The Honeymoon by Arnold Bennett, in which, after being married by an imposter in cleric's clothing, a couple are stopped on their honeymoon.One of the top thirty attractions at Australian cinemas for 1953. COMMENT: Despite a cop-out conclusion which could well be eliminated now the clammy hand of censorship no longer holds the film-maker in total bondage, this is an entertaining and at times incisive look at what the State is pleased to term "marriage". (We are of course here concerned only with "marriage" as a civil and legal institution). The first episode is undoubtedly the best with a rather bitter pill, cleverly sugar-coated with deadly humor which spares neither the principal characters nor their radio program and the gullible public it attracts. The script mercilessly flays their greed which forces them to live with a partner each despises and cynically enact a life of hypocrisy and deceit. They are both really tragic figures, who because of a fatal weakness in their characters, are unable to escape from the hideous daily round of their lives. There is laughter here, because their boredom with each other, their name-calling and abuse, the crass commercialism of their radio program has been skilfully exaggerated so that it becomes ludicrous and ridiculous enough to be amusing - but some of us may find our laughter has a hollow and even a painful ring. Both Fred Allen and Ginger Rogers give well-judged and perfectly timed portrayals, deftly conveying a wide range of emotions in the space of some 15 minutes. One of the reasons the characters are so believable, despite the satiric exaggeration of their roles and milieu, is that they are so well-rounded both in the writing and the acting. The support cast (Maurice Cass playing the organ in a wordless role) is excellent. Edmund Goulding's direction is stylish and effective. He has a keen eye for setting a scene and knows when and how to use a long static takes to get the script's point across.The other episodes don't come up to this standard. Marilyn Monroe's is slight but concise and has a satiric edge to it. She herself gives a most engaging portrayal and is most attractively costumed, and gets okay support from Wayne and Gleason. And we like the bit with Paul Douglas and Eve Arden ensconced in the lap of luxury, bored with life and each other but too lazy (and in Douglas' case too greedy also) to change it, which also has a nice agreeably satiric touch, though as with the MM piece the touch isn't exaggerated, so the humor is mild rather than full - which is how it should be since both stories are slight and could not carry any more.But when we come to the last episodes, we find the stories are over-long both in the writing and the acting. Louis Calhern's movements are so slow and he makes his character so incredibly dumb, he drags the story which is slight, way beyond its point of interest. The climax is dragged out until it stops being funny and becomes plain boring. Zsa Zsa Gabor also overacts to the stage where she is no longer interesting. Still Marjorie Weaver pops in and out of a scene quite arrestingly and Paul Stewart gives another of his cool, nonchalant studies of legal villainy (though his part too is drawn out beyond its welcome). As for the last episode, it is the least pleasing. Mitzi Gaynor is photographed unattractively and is even more boring than slow-talking, fumbling Eddie Bracken. The conclusion descends into pure bathos.Aside from the sprightly and apt music scoring (especially during the 1st episode), production credits are capable if for the most part undistinguished (we like the sharply edited and atmospherically photographed fantasy montage in the Arden-Douglas sequence and we like the pleasingly attractive sets in this sequence and the Allen-Rogers episode - Miss Rogers incidentally is pleasingly photographed and costumed). Production values are well up to "A" standard.

This is a potentially interesting topic, with an all-star cast, largely wasted in a screenplay that's too dispersed, with too little humor. I regard this film as essentially an anthology of little dramas, some with a measure of comedic content. I suspect probably 3 couples rather than 5, would be optimal in the time given.Reviewer dejimd points out that lack of a legal marriage license doesn't necessarily mean that, legally, a couple is not considered married. Thus, the apparently difficult position of Eddie Bracken and Mitzi Gaynor in regard to her pregnancy is not as serious as they had feared. On the other hand, gold-digging Zsa Zsa need not have fainted when she received the notice that her marriage certificate was invalid because the justice of peace that married them was new and not legally able to perform marriage ceremonies for another week. It's perhaps surprising that the bickering couple played by Fred Allen and Ginger Rogers decide to undergo a legally valid marriage ceremony. My guess is that they made sure they were legally married because their jobs at the radio station depended on their being married to each other.The Paul Douglas and Eva Arden couple seemed bored with each other, with no baby to provide a common interest. I wouldn't be surprised if they had rejected a shoring up of the legality of their marriage. I suspect they may have bowed to inertia, in hopes their relationship would eventually get better. The David Wayne & Marylyn Monroe pair look to have a short-term economic strategy, with David serving as the stay-at-home babysitter, while she is traveling around competing in beauty contests. I correctly guessed that they would renew their marriage ceremony.Of course, we wouldn't expect Louis Calhern to agree to make his marriage with gold-digging Zsa Zsa look any more valid.In conclusion, being as how the premise that the common problem of these 5 couples is that they are not legally married is suspect, and the supposed humor is minimal, I can't recommend this film, unless you have a star actor you want to see.

Just watched this on Netflix Streaming. In this one, Victor Moore plays a justice of the peace who presided over six weddings before his license to do so took effect. That means none of those couples are legally married. An explanation of one of them is provided in discussion so only five is seen as depicted on screen: Fred Allen and Ginger Rogers are the first we actually meet and see attempting to get hitched just before they start their morning radio show. They're the funniest as they argue just before airtime before then acting all lovey-dovey plugging various sponsors. Reminds me of an actual skit Allen did with Tallulah Bankhead on his actual radio show in which they also played a married couple on the air doing both the lovey and bickering version of their banter that I heard once on a long playing 33 1/3 rpm record back in the late '80s. The next segment has Marilyn Monroe as a Mrs. America contestant while hubby David Wayne is taking care of their baby and doing housework. Then there's Eve Arden and Paul Douglas as a slightly boring couple with Douglas doing a little fantasizing with other women when he gets his letter. The next one has Louis Calhern as a Dallas oil executive (talk about coincidence as this is my next review concerning original "Dallas" cast members in my movie/TV appearances list in chronological order though the cast member I'm referring to here was Wayne who was the first Digger Barnes there) who gets a divorce summons from Zsa Zsa Gabor (known for many such cases herself in her real-life future). And, finally, there's Eddie Bracken as an Army man who doesn't want his pregnant wife-Mitzi Gaynor-to birth an illegitimate child while he's away. Like I said, the first segment was the funniest with the Monroe/Wayne, Calhern/Gabor, and Arden/Douglas ones also providing some laughs but the most touching is the last one. By the way, it's fascinating seeing Lee Marvin in that one not playing a tough guy. In summary, We're Not Married is quite a good mix of various short stories put in one feature.

In 1952 the compendium film that dated back to at least 1932s Rome Express still had a little steam in it and We're Not Married was Fox's second entry in the genre following O'Henry's Full House. The premise is that old chestnut in which several disparate couples learn that their marriage is invalid. In chronological order the couples are Fred Allen and Ginger Rogers and once you get past the still-attractive Rogers settling for Fred Allen it's not a bad start. Allen, who of course made his name on radio and seldom ventured before the camera, very possibly had a hand in the script which is essentially a diatribe against sponsor-heavy radio shows. He and Rogers are the only couple actually seen getting wed (by Victor Moore with wife Jane Darwell as witness) and only do so in order to get their own Mr and Mrs radio show, an obvious take-off of Dorothy Kilgallan and Dick Kalmar. Next is the shortest sequence which is ironic as it is the one featuring Marilyn Monroe, then just coming up but today 'selling' the DVD. She plays a Beauty Quenn 'Mrs. Mississippi' and hubby David Wayne is not a happy bunny because manager James Gleason is constantly whisking her away on PR trips. This sequence typifies the sloppiness of the film as a whole; the letter informing Monroe and Wayne of their illegal marriage is clearly shown addressed to their home in Mississippi yet NO ONE in the entire sequence has a southern accent. The third segment involves two fine players in Eve Arden and Paul Douglas and both are totally wasted. Then comes Louis Calhern married to gold-digger Zsa Zsa Gabor, the good thing about this one is that Paul Stewart is also on hand as Gabors lawyer. Finally we get Mitzi Gaynor married to Eddie Bracken and pregnant. Bracken, a soldier, is literally shipping out overseas and is forced to go AWOL in order to re-marry Gaynor and ensure his offspring's legitimacy (this was 1952, remember). One of the best things about this is the casting, not only the featured players but also the uncredited players, Lee Marvin (with enough lines to justify a credit surely), Byron Foulgar, Tom Powers, Dabs Greer and Emile Meyer. Far from great but equally far from chopped liver.