dougdoepke Super-slick soaper, the kind that big budget MGM could do to a "T". Poor Jerry (or should it be a feminized "Geri"). Her love life goes through a tangle from adoring husband to broken marriage to loose living among NY's upper crust. For example, there's drunken Paul who screws up Dorothy's life by parking their car on a cliff's bottom. Then there's hubby Ted who strays in a weak moment, and even Jerry herself who strays in return. And catch charming Don patiently waiting his turn. So will Jerry ever find the happiness that comes from finding an inner self. The limelight's on Shearer the whole way. Happily, she delivers without getting too sappy, always a pitfall for this type role. The wardrobe department gets a real workout, upholstering NY's elite in the latest fashionable rags. And catch the boisterous nightclub scenes, a welcome counterpoint to all the gab. Too bad that I was hoping for more nightclub bands and the fun stylings of the day. But no luck. On the coin's flip side, producer Thalberg spared no expense doing right by his lady-love. Plus, Shearer gets to run the emotional gamut all the way to an Oscar statuette. Of course, no one will get brain drain from escapist material like this. Still, the 80-some minutes amounts to soap opera at it's most watchable, even for this Hopalong Cassidy-loving geezer.

MissSimonetta Norma Shearer went very much against type in this 1930 drama. Usually saddled with ingénue roles or the occasional con-woman/woman of ill repute, in The Divorcée she plays Jerry, a mature married woman who decides to retaliate when her husband has a one night stand. When hubbie finds out she's slept with his best friend, he spews nothing but contempt while feeling his unfaithfulness is natural since he is a man with uncontrollable urges after all. Thus begins Jerry's erotic adventures, in which her door is open to every man but the one she married.The film does have the awkward qualities of many early sound films and some of the actors are clearly ill at ease with the microphone, but nevertheless this is a gem of pre-code Hollywood. And it's not all naughty bed hopping and innuendos; there is genuine, relevant drama about love, faithfulness, and marriage. There are haunting, thoughtful moments in what could have otherwise been sleaze and I appreciate the filmmakers for including them, not taking the easy way out.Of course, much has been said of Norma Shearer and she is excellent: sexy, charming, vulnerable, and whip smart as Jerry. If you have never watched her in anything else, then this film is not a bad introduction. In the early 1930s, she was at her peak as a star and you should not miss Shearer in her prime for all the world.

GManfred I say that because the styles, mores and morals depicted in this film are so antiquated that you have to pretend that you are visiting a museum - that is, with an atavistic sense marveling at a relic of an era long gone. Boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy is unfaithful, girl gets even - but the responses and mindsets of the principals are so out of touch with modern times that one is amused and at times astonished - Did people really act and react like this in similar situations? We can only assume the answer is yes. So be warned - beneath the stilted dialogue and acting lies reality, albeit old-fashioned. Norma Shearer was excellent, Robert Montgomery was under-utilized and Chester Morris was a trifle wooden. Maybe they should have switched him with Conrad Nagel, a much better actor. Morris comes perilously close to wrecking several scenes which evidently required an actor with more range.Speaking for myself, I recommend this one if for no other reason than to revisit motion picture history. It won an AA for Shearer and was nominated for several others, including one for Director Robt. Z. Leonard. I always thought of him as ordinary, and this effort is extraordinary.

Ed Uyeshima Along with Garbo, Norma Shearer was fast becoming MGM's prestige star in 1930 thanks to some degree to her marriage to the mythic studio head Irving Thalberg. However, she was also uniquely talented as proved by the diversity of her films. Although she is remembered today more for her later roles in the title role of 1938's "Marie Antoinette" and as the virtuous center of 1939's "The Women", Shearer plays Jerry Martin, the blazing center of "The Divorcée" in which she plays a carefree young wife who cheats on her husband after he carelessly cheats on her. Instead of treating her in "Scarlet Letter" fashion, the film takes a refreshing look at the double standards between men and women when it comes to adultery. Naturally, they eventually regret their behavior but not before a lot of alcohol-fueled hell-raising with their fair-weather friends.