Like a lot of Hollywood movies in the studio-bound 30s, this is a stagey, screechy talkfest. Sure, for people who didn't live in a city with live theatre, this passed for mature entertainment. But all these decades later it's just a relic of an era of static film-making. There isn't a single interesting visual shot in the entire movie. The plot barely exists. It's just two cranky people crabbing at each other for nearly two hours. Frankly, the whole movie is tiresome. And this from someone who considers Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf one of the greatest films ever made.

...when movies were not that realistic - 1936. Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston) for the sake of his wife's happiness, has sold the car company that he created and built up with his own two hands and made plans for an extended trip to Europe. You can see the sadness on his face as he leaves his old world behind. On the steamship to Europe the trouble begins. Dodworth's wife, Fran (Ruth Chatterton), begins a flirtation. Dodworth begins a friendship with a divorcée, Edith Cortright (Mary Astor), a divorcée living in Italy, on her way back home. Sam tries to make the best of this upending of his world and sees this as an opportunity to learn new things. However, Fran's vanity, and the flirtations of the European men she meets, begin to have her pulling away from her husband. She eventually dumps Sam so she can pursue her life and a new love - a much younger one - in Europe. I love the irony with Fran and her attitude towards Europe. She tells Sam that "they're my people, they understand me, or something to that effect.Later she finds out different in the form of the redoubtable Maria Ouspenskaya, who asks her all sorts of nagging questions, for instance, how old are you? It is made clear to her that she is unacceptable as the old wife to a young husband who is expected to produce heirs. There is a difference between spending a summer at an Italian villa and trying to marry the son of a traditional European family. The hurt look on her face as she realizes she has been abandoned when her beloved refuses to go against his mother's wishes will probably always linger when I think of this movie. So much for Europe's understanding. Chatterton is so good. I may not warm up to Fran that much, but Ruth makes her interesting. Fran is a human being, not just a bad person, thanks to Ruth. Meanwhile Sam, while nursing his wounds, meets up with Edith again, and her love and support has him making business plans again. The words told to him by an old friend at the beginning were true - a man like him will always need to be building something. Edith Cortright in the form of Mary Astor remains for me one of the most appealing characters ever.. That long, deft scene between her and Sam is my favorite. She says to him, "We? ... we?" in her you're-going-to-take-me-with-you realization and later says to him, "I think I must love you," to which he replies, "And I'm glad of it..." which on the surface doesn't seem all that romantic but it somehow works perfectly with these two.But then that dreaded phone call from Vienna from the abandoned Fran, the way poor Edith tries to shield Sam from that call, and later making her I-won't-let-you-go speech. She doesn't come across demanding or petulant, she actually makes sense. So what happens? Watch and find out. Remember Sam is a conventional guy, and conventional guys in 1936 "stick". I'll just say that never has a to-do over the placement of luggage produced such an epiphany in a film. I'll also say that for this to come only two years after the production code it is a very real treatment of marriages and how people grow apart, and maybe they were very different from the beginning, but only after the children are grown and they are alone again do they figure that out.

"Dodsworth" is an adaptation of a novel by Sinclair Lewis. I have not read the novel, but every film should stand on its own anyway.The film follows the marriage of a couple who decide to retire and travel abroad. The husband, Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston), is dedicated to his wife and her wishes. His primary character trait is duty. The wife, Fran Dodsworth (Ruth Chatterton), wishes to get away from her routine life. Her primary character trait is vanity.While on their excursion, they quickly drift apart. To quell her fear of aging, Fran seeks the attentions of other men. Sam--a man of action and industry--finds himself lost in the inaction of leisure.The acting in this film is wonderful. The photography is beautiful. All of the production values--from sets to music--are first class.In my opinion, the story challenges the conception that marriage is about self-sacrifice. It shows the damage that is wrought when one person dedicates his existence to the happiness of another with no regard for his own. It's an important message that gives "Dodsworth" consequence.

Sinclair Lewis' novel receives the red-carpet Hollywood screen treatment, becoming a well-made (but glorified) soap opera complete with marital break-ups and transatlantic shipboard romances. The idea of a well-to-do matron abandoning her comfortable marriage for the more exhilarating pleasures of worldly-wise Europe must have seemed daring in its day, but William Wyler tiptoes his way through the scenario with what looks on screen more like respect than enthusiasm, leaving his veteran cast to pick up the slack, which is probably just as well. Not all the characters fare entirely well by the film's conclusion, and the lack of a conventional happy ending to this otherwise straightforward melodrama provides one of the few surviving reasons to recommend it today.[ ...a belated postscript: after fulfilling my promise to revisit the film, in this case some twenty years after being underwhelmed by my first exposure to it, I'm convinced some movies shouldn't be wasted on kids. The subtlety and craftsmanship displayed on both sides of the camera were lost on me at the time, and the story itself was obviously beyond my experience. My rating has been adjusted accordingly, but the original review I'll let stand as a lesson in humility. Older, wiser, so forth... ]