Nothing gets a woman's heart pumping a little quicker than an early Gary Cooper movie, and The Wedding Night from 1935 is no exception.Cooper is writer Tony Barratt - think F. Scott Fitzgerald - whose publisher doesn't want his next book and tells him whatever he had, he's lost it. So he and his wife Dora (Helen Vinson) take off for an inherited country home. Tony becomes intrigued by the family of Polish émigrés who live nearby, particularly the beautiful daughter, Manya Novak (Sten).Okay, here is something that confuses me. My friends are of Polish descent. They called their sister Mary Manya. So far, so good.This family's last name is Novak. That's Czech.And they say Dasvidaniya, which is Russian. Go figure.Back to the story. After the father (Sig Ruman) buys a field from Tony for $5,000, Dora wants to hightail it back to New York, now that they have some money. Tony decides to stay. He begins writing a book about the family.He and Manya fall in love, though it's unconsummated. She is engaged to Fredrik Sobieski (Ralph Bellamy) a real bumpkin, whom she doesn't love. When she decides not to marry him, her father has a fit, and the engagement is back on. Meanwhile, Tony wants a divorce.Bittersweet film with lovely performances by Cooper and Sten. Cooper in the beginning is immaculate in a suit, and he and Dora are part of the high-class social set. He did play many sophisticated roles in the '30s, but Mr. Deeds and westerns would follow. Instead of strong and silent, here he's animated and romantic.This film was apparently supposed to introduce Anna Sten to American audiences. Sam Goldwyn wanted to build her up as the next Garbo. I don't know about you, but I don't remember Greta Garbo playing a farmer with dowdy clothes. If he was going to build her up, why not showcase her beauty? She was beautiful, and her acting is very good. To me she hasn't the presence of Garbo or Dietrich, but I think Goldwyn could have given her better treatment.Helen Vinson really has the strongest role, and she was up to it.Very poignant story, directed by King Vidor, and beautifully photographed.

Gary Cooper and Anna Sten, an actress I'm not too familiar with, star in this romantic tale called "The Wedding Night." Complications arise right away when we open on Gary Cooper, married to Helen Vinson. Gary is an author who's written several books, but they have gotten progressively worse and his latest his publisher won't publish. With literally no money to their name, they decide to leave New York and go to a country house he owns in Connecticut on farmland. Neighbors Sig Ruman and daughter Anna Sten drop by to make an offer to buy the fields from him. Desperately needing the money, he accepts and talks his wife into going back to New York, because she never liked the place and loves the bustle of New York. With no else around save for a cook, Anna Sten feels a little sorry for him and starts coming around, and when the cook leaves, she starts making him breakfast. With all this time spent together, they begin to have feelings for each other. But, she is engaged to Ralph Bellamy, kind of, that is, as father has been arranging it for some time. But she doesn't love him. Such begins a no win situation. What begins as a very romantic and involving film turns into tragedy I didn't see coming. Granted, Gary was already married. But really this gets bad! No one's happy at the end. A very enjoyable and well made film is marred by an abrupt ending. Even Helen Vinson is especially good as the wronged wife, who gives one of her best performances, aside from Paul Muni's film, "I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang." You'll love this film, like I did - up to the last minute, but be prepared for a downbeat ending.

Yesterday I re-watched "The Wedding Night" (1935), this time with my wife who had never seen it before. For me it was like watching it all over again for the first time. I think that this happens with great pictures, like this one. She also loved the film and I felt so gratified by that, because sadly this type of quiet, sensitive films is not the kind of film which you can watch with anybody and can be fully appreciated as it should be.I'm a fan of "the Gary Cooper" of the late '20s and 1930s, in my opinion some his best films were made around this time, before his definitive screen persona was established, especially in the early thirties. He gives a sensitive, balanced, nuanced, performance in a film that looks like a slice of life. His character is so unarchetypical, so honestly portrayed by him, that you get immersed totally in this beautiful love story. And this is no by chance, because the film was directed by the masterful King Vidor.Praise must also go to the two actresses that vividly portray the two women in Cooper's life: the unjustly forgotten and underrated Russian actress Anna Sten and the equally unfairly forgotten actress Helen Vinson. Miss Vinson portrays without falling in the caricature, a shallow, but at the same time likable society woman, who thinks that life is a never-ending party and does not take marriage as seriously as it should be taken, realizing it too late. Miss Sten plays the naïve but strong-willed Polish woman who reluctantly at first, begins to fall for the writer portrayed by Cooper. The scene in which Cooper reads to her the first chapters of the new (autobiographical) book he is writing, is most telling in this aspect; because Miss Sten does not fall for the dashing, tall, handsome Cooper, but for his character's sensitiveness, feelings and emotions which she apprehends by means of this book in progress.In short, none of the three principals of this story incur in stereotypical portrayals, which helped me to connect with their characters' emotions, with its virtues and flaws.A wonderful experience, which with no doubt I'll repeat in the future, because this film deserves many viewings and is just my kind of film; a simple love story, unpretentiously directed, that does not aim at over sentimentality and does not fall into the maudlin which can ruin a movie, with superb, unaffected performances by the leads.

Anna Sten deserved and Oscar for her portrayal, not to be made fun of and practically run out of town. Which just proves my theory that most critics tastes are in their mouth. I invited anyone who enjoys a movie of old, when it was about entertainment rather than depraved education to make the attempt to find a copy, sit back and enjoy. Goldwyn COULD pick them. Anna Sten and Cooper were something great in this movie.