Directed by:
Dorothy ArznerScreenplay:
Edwin Justus MayerCinematography:
David AbelCast:
Sylvia Sidney, Fredric March, Adrianne Allen, Richard 'Skeets' Gallagher, George Irving, Florence Britton, Charles Coleman, Cary Grant, Kent Taylor (more)Plots(1)
Addiction, nonmonogamy, and female liberation: decades before such ideas were widely discussed, Dorothy Arzner, the only woman to work as a director in 1930s Hollywood, brought them to the screen with striking frankness, sophistication, and wit. A mature treatment that stands out even in the pre-Code era. Fredric March (in one of four collaborations with Arzner) and Sylvia Sidney turn in extraordinary performances as the urbane couple whose relationship is pushed to the breaking point by his alcoholism and wandering eye. Leading them into an emotionally explosive experiment with an open marriage. Exposing the hypocrisies and petty cruelties simmering beneath the surface of high-society elegance, Merrily We Go To Hell is a scathing early-feminist commentary on modern marriage. (Criterion)
(more)Cast
Adrienne Ames
USA
Best movies:
Merrily We Go to Hell (1932)
The Death Kiss (1932)
Edwin Maxwell
Ireland
Best movies:
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Fury (1936)
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Robert Greig
Australia
Best movies:
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
You Can't Take It with You (1938)
Tales of Manhattan (1942)
Harry Cording
UK
Best movies:
East of Eden (1955)
The Last of the Mohicans (1936)
The Sea Hawk (1940)
Tom Ricketts
UK
Best movies:
After the Thin Man (1936)
The Invisible Man (1933)
The Power and the Glory (1933)
Leonard Carey
UK
Best movies:
Gaslight (1944)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Rebecca (1940)