Josh Bell
Beginning with its title, 1930’s The Divorcee (released 95 years ago this week) announces itself as bold and risqué — the kind of frank, open story about sex and infidelity that essentially disappeared when Hollywood began enforcing the Production Code in 1934. Star Norma Shearer, who won her only Best Actress Oscar for The Divorcee, is a quintessential pre-Code actress, exuding sly sensuality and brash independence as Jerry Martin, a New York City career woman whose seemingly blissful marriage suddenly falls apart.
Jerry and her future husband Ted (Chester Morris) are first glimpsed in a remarkably passionate embrace out in the woods, as their society friends wait impatiently for them to return to a cabin retreat outside the city. Rather than a romantic proposal on bended knee brandishing a ring, Ted’s suggestion of marriage is more of a casual discussion, with both parties laying down their terms. “You know, you’ve got a man’s point of view,” Ted says with a mix of wonder and approval, and Jerry insists that their marriage will be a union of equals.
Although The Divorcee sets her up to learn a lesson about forgiveness and compromise, it isn’t meant to tear Jerry down or denigrate her perspective. The regressive values that lead to the ostensible happy ending are tempered by progressive framing, and if Jerry modifies her “man’s point of view,” she does it in a way that honors her autonomy. There’s never a moment when she’s pressured to give up her career — which is clearly more successful than Ted’s — nor is her status as a working woman ever blamed for the dissolution of her marriage. From the moment the movie begins, she’s often clad in male-coded attire, including pants and shirtsleeves, and it never detracts from her attractiveness or vulnerability.
Shearer’s commanding yet playful presence gives Jerry a vibrancy that makes it easy to believe that at least two other men are crushingly disappointed when she and Ted return to that cabin and announce their engagement. While women in later Code-era films typically have to appear chaste before marriage, the opening scenes of The Divorcee are full of obvious references to liaisons among the group. Both Paul (Conrad Nagel) and Don (Robert Montgomery) have romantic histories with Jerry, and everyone makes cavalier, lighthearted jabs about the prior divorce of Jerry’s friend Helen (Florence Eldridge).
Those glib jokes offer a somewhat jarring contrast to the drunk-driving accident that follows in the next scene, and The Divorcee continues to mix saucy comedy with sober melodrama over the course of its sometimes breakneck 82 minutes. Soon three years have passed since Jerry and Ted’s wedding, and they’re living in apparent domestic tranquility until an unexpected visit from a woman Jerry has never met throws everything into chaos.
The break-up of Jerry and Ted’s marriage is both abrupt and gradual, with believable hurt feelings on both sides. Ted’s sexist double standard for cheating is presented as his own character flaw, not necessarily the movie’s viewpoint, and both parties have to reflect and mature during their time apart. After Ted confesses to a brief fling that he says didn’t mean anything, he keeps admonishing Jerry to “snap out of it,” although she holds herself together as she sends him off on a business trip and then heads out on the town with Don.
Shearer conveys all of Jerry’s internal angst with a simple switch of her facial expression, and her dead-eyed glare as she’s making the rounds with Don illustrates just how depressed and numb Ted’s cheating has made her. Later, when he returns from his trip with flowers and a superficial apology, she coolly tells him, “I’ve balanced our accounts,” without any effort to hide her own indiscretion. Ted’s instant shift from placation to anger demonstrates the fragility of his own male ego.
When Jerry finds out about Ted’s affair during a gathering of friends, she keeps calm and puts on a brave face so the evening can continue. After learning of Jerry’s infidelity, Ted storms into a wedding reception, drunk, knocking over a wedding cake and making a spectacle of himself. He’s the irrational one, ruled by his emotions, and he’s the one who insists on filing for divorce rather than attempting to work things out. “From now on, you’re the only man in the world that my door is closed to,” Jerry tells him when he leaves, and it’s a moment of pure liberation.
In the courtroom as Jerry’s divorce is finalized, Helen offers her hearty congratulations, and Jerry’s life as a divorcee looks glamorous and fun. Director Robert Z. Leonard stages an ingenious montage of close-ups on Jerry’s hands being caressed and bejeweled by various suitors, all of whom remain out of frame. Jerry is draped in a luxurious dress, with lustrous hair, as she lightly fends off the advances of a wealthy Frenchman while lounging on a train to Toronto for a trade convention.
If The Divorcee ultimately has to come around to the emptiness of Jerry’s divorced life and her need to make things right with Ted, it does so on Jerry’s terms almost exclusively. It may be disappointing from a modern perspective that Jerry isn’t allowed to remain liberated, but there’s never any sense that she’s being diminished or put in her place. By the end of the movie, she’s gotten a promotion, a raise, and a man who will never take her for granted again. Talk about a woman who has it all.
“The Divorcee” is available for digital rental or purchase.
