I Live My Life (1935)

I Live My Life starts out as a simple story: boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, girl runs away, boy pursues girl. But the boy is an Irish archaeologist who is not afraid to get his hands dirty and who spurns "people with too much money". The girl comes from a wealthy New York/Connecticut family that cowers in the presence of the grandmother who controls the family fortune and, therefore, their lives.During the film, the characters tell a series of lies. In the beginning, these are frivolous lies told with no concern for the feelings of others. By the end of the film, they lie for love.I am not a huge fan of Joan Crawford, who plays the wealthy and frivolous girl, Kay Bentley. But in some of her early films she displays a great energy. I Live My Life is one of those films. On occasion, she even displays emotional subtlety.Brian Aherne plays the boy. He is, in turns, ebullient and downcast as his character (Terry O'Neill) is buffeted by the fickle winds of Kate's affections.The cast includes memorable performances all around, especially by Eric Blore as the Bentley butler.The gowns and other wardrobe that were fashioned by Adrian deserve mention. Others have been critical of his efforts in this film, but I found them immensely enjoyable. Even when they are impractical, they accentuate the frivolous nature of the rich who inhabit this film. They are bold statements that sometimes transcend practicality and embrace art. The film itself is not a masterpiece, but it satisfies

There are three major things wrong with this movie: Joan Crawford, playing a role that should have gone to Carole Lombard; and the script, which they must have been writing as they were shooting, and the direction -- you can almost pinpoint the moments when the director must have been screaming "More energy, I want more energy up there!" Joan and Brian Aherne meet cute at an archaelogical dig in Greece, then fall in love (Joan has to lie about her wealthy background), part, Brian travels from Greece to marry her, and then they go back and forth and back and forth -- we love each other, we don't love each other, we're getting married, we're not getting married. It must have been hard on the screenwriters to keep having to come up with endless boring and unplausible reasons for keeping them apart. Obviously, I didn't enjoy this, but I must say you haven't lived until you've watched the scene here where Joan verbally attacks her wedding gown -- honest, like two pages of dialogue -- before ripping it to shreds.

Crawford is very funny in this follow up to the trend started by It Happened One Night. Brian Aherne is miscast, but the are a good looking couple and there is some chemistry there, although not as much as there would be with Tracy or Gable. None-the-less, Crawford added a nice comedy to her dossier and it wears well even today.

MGM's desperation for new Crawford ventures wafts over this overstuffed and un-funny 1935 production. The gowns are beautiful, she looks fantastic ... but look for no chemistry between Crawford and Aherne. "Fun" and "silly" escape Crawford's abilities. Yes, she rides a runaway mule, slips down a hill, and falls on her backside ... but all done with a grimly painted on smile. Her discomfort spans the decades.