How To Be Happy When Married!

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 37, 24 February 1939, Page 14

How To Be Happy When Married!

["Vacation from Love.’ M-G-M. Directed by George Fitzmaurice. ». 1 Dennis O'Keefe, Florence Rice. Reginald Owen. First release: Wellington, April 14.] \RRIED life, according to the movies, is seldom normal. In M-G-M’s ‘*Vacation From Léve’’ it is just plain erazy. But one would, I suppose, hardly expect sanity from a saxophone , player who breaks up a society wedding

ee — and coolly walks off with the bride just because he liked the look of her photograph in his morning paper; or from a girl who let herself be carried away like that. These young people, you see, have a Scheme of Things. They believe that the way to be happy is to do just what you want to do just when you want to do it. And always, above all things, have fun. Be mad, be merry, have fun, fun, FUN! , To which the cynic. in us replies, rot, rot, ROT! However, if you are prepared to poke the tongue firmly in the cheek, and look with a tolerant eye upon the madcap moods of Dennis O’Keefe and Florence Rice, you may find "Vacation from Love" moderately amusing. It has to be conceded that all the cast work strenuously to make it so; which is possibly the reason why some of their efforts seem a trifie laboured. After The Wedding T’S not until after the hero has snatched his bride from the altar, and her irate father (Reginald Owen) has practically blown up and burst, and then subsided, that the young couple dis- cover that a certain amount of money is necessary to maintain a steady pressure of fun. After the billing and cooing, come the bills. So the husband goes to work for his father-in-law and becomes so interested in his job that business interferes with pleasure, All work and not much play makes Dennis a dull boy. Whereupon the wife feels herself neglected and dashes off to Paris to get a divorce. The husband follows later, and by that time he’s ready for more fun and the film is ready to end. Which it does, without 2 divorce.