Stranded (film)

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Movie
Original title Stranded
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1935
length 72 minutes
Rod
Director Frank Borzage
script Delmer Daves
production Frank Borzage for Warner Brothers
music Bernhard Kaun ,
Heinz Roemheld
camera Sid Hickox
cut William Holmes
occupation

Stranded is a 1935 American film starring the popular screen couple Kay Francis and George Brent .

action

Lynn Palmer works as a social worker in San Francisco. It mainly supports traveling salespeople and people without a home. One day she meets one of the engineers responsible for building the Golden Gate Bridge , the chauvinist Mack Hale. For Mack women are only good for amusement and cheap pleasure. He makes fun of Lynn's job and claims that anyone can help themselves if they only want. Gradually, Mack's respect for Lynn and her commitment to the weak in society grows. In the end, Lynn explains to him how similar their two professions are.

"You build with steel and I try to build with people." ("You work with steel and I work with people.")

They both decide to live their lives together and get married.

background

Immediately after moving from Paramount to Warner Brothers in 1932, Kay Francis had risen to become a popular actress of independent, self-confident women who fight for their love and do not submit to standard moral codes. The film itself initially went into production under the title Lady With a Badge . Although it was brought into distribution after the Production Code came into force , it nonetheless brought provocative ideas about female self-determination and the employment of wives to the screen. In the end, Francis retains her professional independence despite marriage, which was the absolute exception in the films of the decade. For Francis, the film marked the end of a long dry spell, during which the studio mainly engaged in cheaply made routine productions that were rejected by other stars like Ruth Chatterton and Barbara Stanwyck . It wasn't until the success of Living on Velvet, also directed by Borzage and with George Brent as a partner, that it gained new popularity.

The production was also a turning point for the actress in her private life. She and Delmar Daves fell in love while filming and lived together more or less openly for the next three years. The good friendship of the two with Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper , the leading society columnists at the time, prevented an overly open discussion about their affair in the media.

In terms of its constellation, Stranded is a typical Frank Borzage film with its portrayal of two lonely people fighting for a common future. The film historian Hervé Dumont summed up the director's message as follows.

“[The films] depict nothing more than the emergence of an affection, the search for authenticity, an inner career. The poet of loving intimacy is born and his material has been found: a man and a woman, both seemingly hopeless loners, outsiders, even deserters, overcome their egocentric drives in order to enhance each other in the course of several life tests - whether war, disease or poverty . They are strengthened by their love for one another. Unrestricted, emphatically non-bourgeois love, which is at the same time the object and subject of Borzage's entire filmography and, depending on the story, transcends time, space, possibly death. "

Reviews

The Los Angeles Evening Herald Express praised the unusually sensitive portrayal of the two stars.

"From the first encounter, the two have their arguments and the audience enjoy these arguments, the quick change of blows and the not clichéd love scenes between them."

The New York Times was also impressed by the film:

“ Stranded presents Kay Francis, smartly dressed as always, and George Brent, more charming than ever, in a drama that is at the same time somewhat implausible and thoroughly entertaining. [...] The main plus point of the film is its sense of humor. "

Stranded was produced from March 7th to April 15th, 1935. It premiered on June 19, 1935 in New York City .

Theatrical release

Production costs averaged $ 348,000, which the studio was investing in a Kay Franics film at the time. At the box office, Stranded turned out to be reasonably popular compared to the actress's previous films. In the United States, he grossed $ 349,000, with a further $ 217,000 from abroad. The end result was a total of $ 566,000.

source

  • Scott O'Brien - Kay Francis I Can't Wait to be Forgotten - Her Life by Film and Stage; ISBN 1-59393-036-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jeff Stafford: Stranded (1935) - Articles. In: Turner Classic Movies . Accessed April 25, 2020 (English).
  2. ↑ Hervé Dumont : “Borzage-Touch” or poetry and the velvet shine of the pictures. In: nzz.ch . November 5, 2004, accessed April 25, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Clash do they do from their first meeting, and the audience throughly enjoys the argument, the swift give-and-take of repartee and the un-stereotyped love scenes between the two.
  4. ↑ Frank S. Nugent : At the Strand . In: The New York Times . June 20, 1935 ( online on the New York Times pages [accessed April 25, 2020]): "Stranded" presents Kay Francis, as handsomely owned as ever, and George Brent, more amiable than ever, in a mobile drama which manages to be quite unbelievable and generally entertaining. […] The picture's chief virtue is its sense of humor.
  5. ↑ Stranded (1935). In: American Film Institute . Accessed April 25, 2020 (English).
  6. ↑ Stranded (1935). In: Kay Francis Films. March 23, 2009, accessed April 25, 2020 .