The animal kingdom 1932 - Good mistress vs. bad wife

Ann Harding, Leslie Howard & Myrna Loy in The Animal Kingdom (1932)

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IMDB rating: 6,6

Director: George Cukor, Edward H. Griffith
Main Cast: Ann Harding, Leslie Howard, Myrna Loy, William Gargan, Neil Hamilton, Ilka Chase

"The first film version of Philip Barry's Broadway play The Animal Kingdom stars Ann Harding, Leslie Howard and Myrna Loy. Howard plays a wealthy publisher who decides to marry the socially prominent Loy, leaving his mistress Harding in the lurch. In comically convoluted fashion, Loy behaves like a callous libertine, while Harding is the soul of love and fidelity. The frustrated Howard declares at the end that he is going back to his 'wife' - meaning, of course, the faithful Harding. Animal Kingdom was long withdrawn from public view due to the 1946 remake One More Tomorrow; a pristine 35-millimeter print was discovered in the Warner Bros. vaults in the mid-1980s.
Philip Barry as a playwright was able to find an audience in two distinct eras of American history, the carefree Roaring Twenties and the poorer socially significant Thirties. He did with a clever mixture of social commentary while writing about the privileged classes enjoying their privileges.
The Animal Kingdom had a 183 performance run on Broadway the previous year and its star Leslie Howard was a movie name already on two continents. So Howard, Bill Gargan, and Ilka Chase repeat their Broadway roles here.
Harding was an interesting leading woman - she was attractive but not beautiful and had a very low, distinctive speaking voice. She came from the Broadway stage, and her heyday in films was through the mid-thirties, though she worked consistently in films and television until the mid-60s. As was the case back then, at 31 years of age, her time as a leading lady was drawing to a close, and soon would be turned over to people like the younger Loy. Her performance in The Animal Kingdom is a very honest one. Loy is absolutely ravishing as she essays the part of the glamorous wife beautifully, reminiscent of Gene Tierney later on with the ultra-feminine facade hiding the steel underneath. Howard is handsome and thoughtful in the lead, and one can see it slowly occurring to him that he made a mistake."

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