A minor work by highly talented Frank Borzage is always worth watching .Coming after "Three comrades" it cannot hold a candle to it.But Margaret Sullavan is featured again as Judy and it's finally her character who sums up Borzage's philosophy in "the shining hour" : a woman whose love is so true and so pure she will do anything to make her husband happy ,even if she's got to give everything she's got even her own life.The screenplay often recalls "Waterloo Bridge" (the first version was made in the early thirties ,the Leigh/Le Roy version was released later in 1939): a plebeian (Crawford) is an intruder in a posh aristocratic milieu.But she is a dancer ,not a prostitute !The only person who wants to get rid of her is old sister Hannah ,still a spinster,but the true reason is not that she's not in the same league (the tea scene is revealing) but that she stole her brother from her.Hannah is an over possessive sister ,in love with Henry ,Fay Bainter's performance leaves no doubt about it.There's a similar relationship in Hitchcock highly underrated "Marnie " (1964) between Sean Connery and Diane Baker.

Contrary to most of the opinions I read here, I did not find this film "soapy." I found it, refreshingly, a film for adults. For me, that's all too rare. I think it's about what relationship is, what love is and isn't, and most of all about the experience it takes and the resulting wisdom to build relationship beyond an adolescent understanding of love and attraction. And the great value of the self-knowledge that results. For me, that adult perspective was so refreshing and so rare that it beats out every other consideration. (Especially given the idiotic popular fare we're used to these days which substitutes a junior high school age cynicism for the difficult work of love.) Along with, say, "Dodsworth," for some reason Hollywood in this period was capable of some genuinely mature work for adults. The popular culture could use a little more. With Ogden Nash in the writing credits, I shouldn't be surprised at what I found valuable in this film.

A perfect example of the Thalberg/Selnick/MGM high-style at its most polished. Flawlessly directed by the under-rated contract director Frank Borzage, the film features superb ensemble work from the entire stellar cast plus an unusually malicious turn by Fay Bainter who never quite showed her lady-like fangs like this before. Adapted from a well-made Broadway play of 1934, the sexual tension between the two unloving couples could never be realized as it might have been had there not been censorship so instead of a little explosive adultery and fiery hanky-panky, as the plot seems to suggest, we end up with a hot summer night instead with everyone complaining about the heat until the "burning" resolution --but not the one you might think. (Had Tennessee Williams been around in those days we might have had an entirely different ending.) Yes, it is definitely a soap opera but MGM always gave us the best soap money could buy!

I always wanted to see this movie. It was one that Joan Crawford wanted to do after so many mediocre movies in the mid-30's. But I just did not like it. It was based on Keith Winter's Broadway hit but it was probably overly sanitized for the post-1933 censors that did not allow characters to have real problems unless they were killed for their human indiscretions. The cast is tops. Youthful Joan , the lovely Margaret Sullivan, the excellent Robert Young, the charming Melvyn Douglas and the superb character actress Fay Bainter. The script just does not properly develop why these characters especially Bainter's are so conflicted. And Joan seems too mannered in that way that made it look like she was just walking through the part. Not one of Joan's classics but watchable nonetheless. Bainter walks away with it though her character's sudden change at the end does not make any sense.