“When Ladies Meet,” 1941, Is Playing on TCM on August 16 (USA)

When Ladies Meet (1941) is playing on Turner Classic Movies on Sat, August 16, 2014 07:30 AM est. Closed captioned.

Mona Barrie, Greer Garson, Robert Taylor in “When Ladies Meet.”

“When Ladies Meet” is the story of a married couple, a lady author and a charming single journalist. Joan Crawford, the author, considers herself a “modern woman” freed from tiresome conventions and moral imperatives. Despite the movie’s 1941 date, the author’s relativistic attitude toward marriage and fidelity would be right at home in today’s left-wing intellectual circles. Her gradual evolution towards a different attitude is the meat of the movie. Mirroring the situation in her book is the situation of the married couple, Greer Garson and Herbert Marshall. The fourth member of the group is Robert Taylor as a journalist whose surface gaiety hides a serious moral foundation.The four actors make the movie much better than the script. Garson and Crawford strike sparks off each other in every scene they share. Herbert Marshall is suitably smooth and sleazy. But it’s Robert Taylor in a role involving physical comedy whose work is the most impressive. As it turns out, he is the person most grounded in reality–and the hidden hand behind everything.

Everything has the expected MGM gloss–extravagant costumes, beautiful sets, excellent photography. Highly recommended. Review by me.

About giraffe44

I became a Robert Taylor fan at the age of 15 when his TV show, "The Detectives" premiered. My mother wanted to watch it because she remembered Mr. Taylor from the thirties. I took one look and that was it. I spent the rest of my high school career watching Robert Taylor movies on late night TV, buying photos of him, making scrapbooks and being a typical teenager. College, marriage and career intervened. I remember being sad when Mr. Taylor died. I mailed two huge scrapbooks to Ursula Thiess. I hope she got them. Time passed, retirement, moving to Florida. Then in 2012 my husband Fred pointed that there were two Robert Taylor movies that evening on Turner Classic Movies--"Ivanhoe" and "Quentin Durward." I watched both and it happened all over again. I started this blog both for fans and for people who didn't know about Robert Taylor. As the blog passes 200,000 views I'm delighted that so many people have come by and hope it will help preserve the legacy of this fine actor and equally good man.

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2 Responses to “When Ladies Meet,” 1941, Is Playing on TCM on August 16 (USA)

dianne345 says:

August 16, 2014 at 4:23 pm

Not one of my favorites (too much of the ladies) & one of the few RT movies I don’t have on DVD, but I watched it again this morning & thoroughly enjoyed it. RT is excellent in both the comedy scenes & the serious scenes. MGM should have let him do more comedy. My favorite Taylor comedy is “Many Rivers to Cross,” also with a lot of physical comedy.

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giraffe44 says:

August 17, 2014 at 3:59 pm

I wish Mr. Taylor had done more comedy. He would have been good in some of he roles Cary Grant did. I’ve come to like this movie very much. The boating scene is hilarious. Thanks for writing.

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