Stranded (1935 film)

• Kay Francis: Lynn Palmer
• George Brent: Mack Hale
• Donald Woods: John Wesly
• Patricia Ellis: Velma Tuthill
• Joseph Crehan: Johnny Quinn
• Robert Barrat: Stanislaus Janauschek
• Barton MacLane: Sharkey
• William Harrigan: Updyke
• Henry O'Neill: Mr. Tuthill

Stranded is an American movie from 1935 with the popular screen couple Kay Francis and George Brent in the lead roles.

Action

Lynn Palmer has worked as a social worker in San Francisco. It will mainly support commercial travelers and homeless people. One day she meets one of the engineers responsible for construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, know the chauvinist Mack Hale. For Mack women are only good for Fun and for a cheap pleasure. He makes fun of Lynn's work funny, claiming that everyone could help themselves, if only he would. Gradually growing in Mack respect for Lynn and their use for the weak in society. At the end he explains Lynn, how similar their two professions yet.

Both decide to live their lives together and get married.

Background

Kay Francis was at Warner Brothers went up immediately after changing from Paramount in 1932, a popular actress of independent, self-confident women who fight for their love and not submit to the prevailing moral beliefs. The film itself was initially under the title Lady With a Badge in production. Although he was brought into the rental after the entry into force of the Production Code, may nevertheless brought provocative ideas about female self-determination and employment of wives on the canvas. Francis reserves at the end of marriage despite their professional independence, which represented the absolute exception in the films of the decade. For Francis, the film was the end of a long dry spell in the studio mainly began in cheaply produced routine productions that were rejected by other stars like Ruth Chatterton and Barbara Stanwyck. It was not until the success of Living on Velvet also directed by Borzage and starring George Brent as a partner helped her to gain new popularity.

Privately, the production for the actress was a turning point. You and Delmar Daves fell in love during the filming, and lived for the next three years more or less open. The good friendship between the two with Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, the then leading society columnists, prevented all to open discussion about their affair in the media.

Stranded is from the constellation ago with his portrayal of two lonely people who are fighting for a common future, a typical Frank Borzage - film. The film historian Hervé Dumont summed up the message of the director as follows.

" [ The films ] describe nothing more than the emergence of an affection that the search for authenticity, an internal career. The poet of loving intimacy is born and his substance found: A man and a woman, both seemingly hopeless loners, outsiders, and even deserters, overcome their egocentric impulses to over the course of several life tests - whether war, disease or poverty - mutually enhance. They are strengthened by their love for each other. An unrestricted emphasizes unbourgeois love that is both object and subject of Borzage's entire filmography and depending on the story time, space, possibly transcends death. "

Reviews

The Los Angeles Evening Herald Express praised the unusually sensitive portrait of the two stars.

"From the first meeting, the two disputes and their audiences enjoy these quarrels, the rapid exchange of blows and just not clichéd love scenes between them. "

The New York Times was also impressed by the movie:

" Stranded presents Kay Francis, dressed up as always, and George Brent, charming than ever, in a drama that is simultaneously something implausible and quite entertaining. [ ... ] The main plus point of the film is its sense of humors "

Source

• Scott O'Brien - Kay Francis I Can not Wait to be Forgotten - Her Life on Film and Stage; ISBN 1-59393-036-4