TheLittleSongbird When hearing of 'When Ladies Meet', it is hard not to feel excited and have good expectations for it. There are many talented people involved here, and with a cast featuring Joan Crawford, Greer Garson, Robert Taylor, Herbert Marshall and Spring Byington and seeing them in the same film who can't resist. Also have a love for films of the classic/golden era of Hollywood.Seeing 'When Ladies Meet', it is definitely an above average and very watchable film. It also could have been better and was a little disappointing considering how good on paper the cast were and how interesting the concept was. Haven't seen the earlier 'When Ladies Meet' for a while, but do remember it being a better film with a superior cast and a much sharper and meatier script. Here's to hoping that that remains the same re-watching it, generally re-watches tend to be pretty much the same opinions wise, there are instances where a film is better on re-watch or one where it is hard to figure out what made me like it in the first place but not an awful lot.A lot of great things. 'When Ladies Meet' was clearly made with elegance and polish, it looks very handsome in the costumes and sets and the film's beautifully shot. It's scored in a way that doesn't intrude yet makes its presence known when needed. The second half is better than the first, with the pacing tighter, the interaction sparkling more and the script more thought-provoking and sharper. The direction feels more assured too. Greer Garson steals the show in 'When Ladies Meet', her natural charm truly shines and she and Joan Crawford, also very good, work very well together towards the end. Robert Taylor looks relaxed and confident, which to me has not always been the case and Spring Byington is delightfully funny in ditzy mode. Unfortunately, Herbert Marshall, in a boorish role with underwritten dialogue and in no way suitable for a love interest (as you don't understand what can be seen in him), looks like he didn't want to be there and takes it too seriously without the light touch that the others had.Also found the first half a bit lacking, with too much of a staid and taking-a-little-too-long-to-get-going approach to the storytelling, which wasn't as fresh or as interesting. The script is much sharper later and can be too lightweight and coarse in the early stages and not saying an awful lot illuminating. The direction didn't feel as natural as it did later, competent certainly but could have done with more spark. In conclusion, decent and above average but was expecting more. 6/10 Bethany Cox

HeathCliff-2 I had a bit of hard time sticking with this movie to the end. I don't normally force myself to watch movies that are lugubrious, but I was curious on several fronts. Firstly, this movie has been out of release, and only recently available through Warner Archives/ Classic Flix, so I'm one of those completists curious to see it. I find as time goes by, that the artifice of the MGM glossy films circa 1940 to 1945 done in this exact high-style - lavish sets and costumes, arch dialogue, drawing-room sensibilities - are hard to take - and I'm someone who is forgiving of, and loves, old movies! I'm fascinated by the MGM pix of this period because of how many are quite bad - and while "Metro" was riding the wave of its success, these films were the beginning of their undoing, as well. This was generally a really bad period for Joan Crawford, as we all know, saddled with mostly bad material, and hampered by her aspiration to be "a great lady of cinema" a la Norma Shearer. Her personal upward mobility from humble roots tainted her work, because she had a personal need to assume the drawing- room enunciation and lady-of-the-manor mannerisms, both of which are so phony in this film - and a blatant contradiction to her natural street-smart roots. I find Joan painfully bad in this movie - so needing to be who she's not. As I watched, I ached for her to shake off her personal psychodrama, as she would 4 years later when she was pushed to authenticity with Mildred Pierce - probably the first time on-camera that there was real grit and edge in her performance, that something was scraped away and you could feel her rawness. The catalyst, for the breakthrough, as we know, was that her artistic and professional career were in jeopardy. As for Greer Garson, her natural charisma, grace and screen presence are quite astonishing - she just draws your eye, and radiates. It's so easy to see why she became a star so quickly, and why audiences (and Louis B. Mayer) loved her. Not the best actress, but very natural in front of a camera, and luminous. I am in conflict with other writers here about Herbert Marshall, who I have always been attracted to for his otherworldly calm and inner sense of goodness. I can see the attraction, even though he isn't overtly dazzling, like Robert Taylor. I find Taylor, like Crawford, is a "movie star" more than actor, and you see him trying to rise to the occasion here in a persona and style of acting that is not in sync with who he is. As I watched, I speculated that this role might have been written for Clark Gable circa 1941 - mischievous, winking, self-aware, dashing, irrascible - but Taylor's performance was forced, a carbon copy of Gable or Robert Montgomery, or even Ray Milland (though he was actually better than I would have expected.) I also found Spring Byington a copy of Alice Brady and Billie Burke - not bad, but a bit forced, like Robert Taylor and Joan Crawford. In fact, I could imagine this script written for Gable, Claudette Colbert and other stars - but they cast who was available. As for the costumes, they weren't as over the top as some MGM films, but, as someone else commented, that ludicrous gardening outfit that Joan Crawford wears - an enormous picture hat, a padded-shoulder dress with gingham inserts that carries through to a matching gingham trim on the hat, and the same fabrics on the elbow- length gardening gloves - is fabulously preposterous, and an embodiment of the total disconnect from reality that infuses this movie. As for the plot, it's dated drawing-room fare with a single mise-en-scene that worked for me -- when the two "ladies" finally realize their respective identities. There was genuine tension and emotion, and a certain authenticity in tone and feelings. Other than that, MGM cake frosting.

mikhail080 A stylish showcase for some of MGM's top stars of the classic era -- Joan Crawford, Robert Taylor and Greer Garson in the second adaptation of a successful Broadway romantic "dramedy." It was aired on TCM, recently as part of their salute to Robert Taylor, and it's a movie that this Joan Crawford fan had never seen! From the start, it's readily evident that MGM has given full reign to their excellent production designers throughout the movie, and it certainly looks as great as any production from that studio in the 1940s. The interiors are lavish and artfully decorated, and the few exterior sequences look fantastic and are expertly filmed in MGM's highest standards of production. And certainly an in-depth review of just the costume design could be possible! Unfortunately though, the dramatic proceedings presented are much too refined and diluted to be of much interest today, since the drawing room dialog and the plot convolutions seem somewhat antiquated -- if not downright clichéd. Today movies like this can only be wholeheartedly recommended to hardcore "completists" of the stars or the Studio.Workman-like director Robert Z. Leonard fails to add much punch to the story line of a "love rectangle" involving the three leads, plus Herbert Marshall -- who takes the role of the object of affection of both Crawford and Garson! Crawford is a lady novelist, whose newest book reflects her own personal life, in a plot device that becomes labored at times. Taylor is Crawford's former lover and now platonic best friend, and Marshall is her doting publisher. Garson plays Marshall's somewhat uninvolved, ultra-sophisticated and globe-trotting wife. And apparently both women prefer Herbert Marshall's extremely subtle charms over that of dashing Robert Taylor, which is a plot point that would leave audiences scratching their heads.The great stars struggle here to inject some sparkle to the proceedings, but the end result is somewhat of a great big yawn. On a positive note, fans of outrageous Hollywood fashion would find much here to appreciate, with some extreme gowns by Adrian worn with panache by the female leads, especially Joan Crawford, whose hooded gown in the opening scene is especially memorable and decidedly impractical.Greer Garson appears at the height of her luminous beauty, and even though she doesn't make her entrance till nearly halfway through the film, manages to equal Crawford's expert photogenic appeal. Spring Byington is also on hand to supply much of the comic element, doing one of her ditsy takes on an open-minded society lady, who may have taken a somewhat effeminate interior decorator (Rafael Storm, in an amusing role) as a lover.Never before or since, have two beautiful woman clashed so politely and in such a refined manner. The viewer would have been better served if the writers (Anita Loos included) had turned up the heat, cranked up the volume, and let loose with a little real raw emotion!**1/2 out of *****

marcslope Two MGM divas get to have at one another in a most civilized, clipped-consonant fashion in this remake of a livelier 1933 comedy-drama, adapted from a hit Rachel Crothers play. Joan Crawford is a best-selling authoress on the brink of an affair with her publisher, Herbert Marshall, who is married to Greer Garson; meantime, Robert Taylor pines, rather inexplicably, after Crawford. I'm sure Joan was an intelligent woman, but playing a New York smart-set intellectual (with a downtown apartment whose garden is the size of a city block), she's unable to project intelligence; you simply can't believe this clothes horse could come up with the smart one-liners Anita Loos puts into her mouth, or that she could pen anything more complex than "The Little Engine That Could." You sense that MGM is building up Greer as it tears down Joan; it's a much more sympathetic part, and though Greer doesn't enter the film till nearly the second half, she dominates it from there on. I find Greer's charms calculated and her acting style obvious, but she has the audience on her side and is more interesting to watch than the ever key-light-seeking Crawford. Why either should pine after the doughy, monotonous Marshall is never clear, and the fadeout is so plainly headed toward a conventional-morality-circa-1941 ending that the drama never runs very high. (For all that, it's resolved quickly and capriciously, and unconvincingly.) But Robert Taylor, at least, is relaxed and unaffected (especially compared to this diphthong-happy trio), and Spring Byington expertly indulges in a ditsy-rich-lady characterization you'd more likely expect from Billie Burke or Alice Brady (who, in fact, played the role in the 1933 version). The real star is the set designer -- I don't know about you, but I want that weekend house of Byington's, with its water wheel and clear lake and Better Homes and Gardens design.