Rating: 
Summary: Splendid Movie
Review: Actors build up their characters at very close perfection in this outstanding film, which deals with the conflicts of a middleaged married american couple in an european-second-honeymoon trip. One wonders how such a poignant, adult film, could be made under the strictures of the Production Code, which reigned supreme from 1934.The cast is uniformly flawless: Walter Huston, as industrialist Sam Dodsworth, gives one of the most sincere and unaffected performances ever achieved by an actor on the american screen (he deserved an Academy Award for this role); lovely and very pretty Mary Astor, in a most sympatthetic role, as an american widow living in Naples, Italy, who falls in love with Huston, realizing they're soulmates; Ruth Chatterton, as Fran Dodsworth, the self-centered, snobbish, selfish, spoiled, manipulative, unnerving & ultimately flirtatious wife of Huston, who cannot cope with growing old and ends looking down on her husband, hometown friends, way of life, etc....yearning for the "european"chic & sophisticated ways of its idle upper classes; Paul Lukas, as the suave, continental man who uses his charms on Chatterton; David Niven, as one of Chatterton's suitors; a very young John Payne, as the Dodsworths' son-in-law; and character actress Madame Maria Ouspenskaya, making her american debut, as the old baroness who spoils Chatterton's wedding plans to her much younger son Kurt (played by Gregory Gaye), who not only is an impoverished nobleman, but cannot make decisions of his very own! Samuel Goldwyn, the legendary and indomitable Hollywood producer, must be given the praise for making the decision to film such a delicate and sensitive movie, with an "A" class treatment, in spite of its lack of commercial punch for regular '30s moviegoers. Really one of the best Hollywood movies of all time, and a truly timeless 1930s classic. Buying this dvd has been one of the smartest investments of my adult life.
Rating:
Summary: Mature for its time.
Review: And yet, you don't hear about it, the way you hear about Gone With The Wind, Wuthering Heights, The Wizard of Oz, et al. It's not a critic's touchstone; it's almost never on a Top 10 list, and yet, it's a superb film. One of the few films where it can truly be said that the writing, the acting and the direction were all perfect, nothing needed to be added, deleted or changed! And that's a rare film!!
Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies of the 1930's
Review: And yet, you don't hear about it, the way you hear about Gone With The Wind, Wuthering Heights, The Wizard of Oz, et al. It's not a critic's touchstone; it's almost never on a Top 10 list, and yet, it's a superb film. One of the few films where it can truly be said that the writing, the acting and the direction were all perfect, nothing needed to be added, deleted or changed! And that's a rare film!!
Rating:
Summary: Wyler-Goldwyn production makes intelligent and mature film
Review: Described as a 'middle-age love story' Dodsworth was the first great collaboration between director William Wyler and producer Samuel Goldwyn and is taken from the smash hit Broadway production of Sinclair Lewis' novel. Goldwyn was originally reluctant to take on the project, thinking it a non-starter but he ended up changing his mind, buying the screen rights for a hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Wyler was hired to direct and threw himself into the project and the end result is a brilliant and mature Hollywood classic. It tells the storty of Samuel Dodsworth a leading citizen of the mid-western town Zenith and the founder of the Revelation motor company and his relationship with his pretentious wife Fran and what happens when they take a European vacation and end up making new relationships. The film addresses many serious themes from marriage, divorce, aging and the cultural clash between Americana and Europeans. The performances are superb. Walter Huston reprising his Broadway role as Sam and is the soul of the film and is matched by the marvellous Mary Astor as Edith the woman with whom he eventually ends up. Ruth Chatterton's stagey emoting seems perfectly suited to her character of Fran the spoilt middle aged woman trying to cling desperatley to her youth. The supporting cast includes Paul Lukas, David Niven, Maria Ouspenskaya, Gregory Kaye and a lovely little turn from Spring Byington as Sam's supportive friend. Sidney Howard wrote an intelligent screenplay and the direction of Wyler is faultless, some of the directorial techniques he would be reknowned for evident here eg the'deep focus'shot (eagle eyed viewers should be able to spot Wyler himself playing the violin among the small orchestra in the Vienna nightclub scene where Fran and her suitor Kurt are dancing). This is one of the many highlights of Wyler's brilliant career and is not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: Age is a state of mind
Review: Dodsworth is a film based on a Sinclair Lewis story about an industrialist who retires and wants to see the world. It is well acted by Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, and Mary Astor in a smaller role. It deals with the Americans' fascination with the European culture, but really applies to any society where there are people who are insecure social climbers. The film also addresses the way that a couple can grow apart over the years. Different values can be dealt with if one of the partners is not dissatisfied, but when one partner has grown tired or ashamed of his/her past, the tendency to look in 'other fields' for satisfaction or self esteem grows. A wonderful movie. Watch it with your partner.
Rating:
Summary: Life's like that
Review: Dodsworth is wonderful movie. The storylines of today's movies pales in comparision to Dodsworth's richness, texture and complexity. The character of Samuel Dodsworth is honest and straightforward and draws the audience into his seemingly simple world. I loved the way Walter Huston played him. The scene where he is standing on the train and he realizes that that would be the last time he would see his wife is overwhelmingly filled with emotion. Yes, he only utters "Have I told you today that I adore you" but he knows as does the audience that he's really saying "Goodbye, I love you, but goodbye" This movie shows that life is like that sometimes. It's real, and without giving away the ending, it shows that life really does go on, sometimes when you least expect it.
Rating:
Summary: Honest!
Review: Dodsworth plays so honest and self assured its no surprise that it still resonates today with such a powerful impact! A married couple of wealth decide to embark on a honeymoon but soon their lust for others consume their small-town facades! Don't underestimate this flicks truth because after its over is where the true meaning of it holds up. For all of Sam Dodsworth open ended good nature his wife was not the evil one in this flick for having the affair it was Dodsworth Wyler paints him in such a warm often nerve popping good guy glow that when a little temptation enters the screen played to perfection by a cool Mary Astor he not only acts human but finally shows some depth. Thats what the films core is the elegance of the dinning scene and the warm glow that each sets of lovers past over one another turns the viewer into a sort of emotional referee! Teh dialogue gives the film its emotional anchor. Dodsworth is a classic for anytime due to the fact that the film not only captured emtions of love and even hate it put it into the open with such raw emotion and drama and even rewards the viewer for not only realizing love doesn't end with middle age it can even begin! A beautiful flick.
Rating:
Summary: WHAT A GEM!
Review: I expected a rather stereotypical, dated but interesting film and ended up watching anything but -- I was fascinated almost to the point of being mesmerized during the whole film by the brilliant performances of a great cast, the honest and moving story, beautiful musical score, and the multidimensionality of the characters parading before me. In short, this is a great movie.
It's about the complexity of people, their shadow side and their light side, involved in relationships for better or for worse. A story about an automobile tycoon who adores his wife. A story about a woman who married young and missed out on experiencing life as a single woman, who performed her duties and cares for her husband and children, but feels she has never really lived life to the core. Unfortunately, she loses her humanity in her quest for a more colorful life.
And the acting, oh my, the acting. Walter Huston is just plain terrific (lost out at academy award time that year to Paul Muni), and Ruth Chatterton (straight from Broadway, and does it show in her awesome performance) is perfect for the role of Fran Dodsworth. Ms. Chatterton lived a life ahead of her time: she directed Broadway plays as well, translated French plays for the American theatre, and was a licensed pilot. After she retired she even became a successful writer.
One of the greatest scenes in the film is between Ms. Chatterton and the great Russian actress Maria Ouspenskaya, who studied in Russia with the reknowned Stanislavski. She only accepted the role to support her own theatre school in New York, and went on to make many more film appearances. The final lines in this scene will bowl you over. Can't miss.
We even see a very young John Payne, who bills himself as John Howard Payne after an ancestor who actually wrote the classic song "Home Sweet Home."
Excellent directing by William Wyler (he keeps the film going at a fast pace), screenplay by Sidney Howard (also wrote the screenplay of "Gone with the Wind," along with other uncredited writers), and the Broadway play, "The Silver Cord."
I think this film should have won the academy award that year (1936) instead of "The Great Ziegfeld," although, of course, there is much to be said for that film as well.
Rating: 
Summary: A Movie that Becomes Part of your Own Experience
Review: I hesitated before viewing DODSWORTH; the title can throw you off, the reprts that it is neither a tragedy nor a comedy; and even, from those who have seen it, the European settings are not interesting (you mainly see the interior of hotel rooms). But wait! It turns out to be a superbly crafted film, well-edited, beautifully paced, well acted (Ruth Chatterton on the weak side, perhaps, but Walter Huston and Mary Astor, especially, as good as they ever get!) The most important thing I can say about DODSWORTH is that it is one of those rare movies that you experience rather than see, that you feel you're growing older and wiser even as the characters on the screen grow older and wiser. The ending is an absolutely perfect realization of the story line; indeed it resolves issues that were there all along, just like a brilliant Agatha Christie ending. This movie is no detective story, of course, but it is plotted and realized with the same impeccable logic. I'm very stingy with Amazon's allotment of stars, and while I would give DODSWORTH four and a half stars if half-stars were available, it doesn't have quite the impact of AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER, a movie which DODSWORTH calls to mind for many structural reasons (but not directly plot-wise). What a joy it would have been to see Walter Huston on the Broadway stage! But since few people alive today can have seen him there, he is preserved for us in DODSWORTH in a role so well acted that you never for a second think he's acting.
Rating:
Summary: Director William Wyler Scores Again
Review: I was surprised by how honestly and maturely this film dealt with its subject matter of a marriage slowly falling apart. It's not what I expected to see coming from 1930's Hollywood. Walter Huston and Ruth Chatterton star as the Dodsworths, a wealthy American couple who go to Europe after his retirement, and while there, discover how little they have in common with each other, and how quickly they are growing apart. She is a vain woman who wants to regain her youth and live a glamourous life, while he is a practical man who wants meaning to his life. Huston is excellent as the conflicted husband, while Chatterton unsubtly tackles her unlikeable character with some success. Mary Astor is terrific (as always) as the woman that Dodsworth should be with. Dodswoth's pain at his disintegrating marriage and life is honestly portrayed, and the ending is very satisfying. This is a terrific film from start to finish, and audiences today will find it both relevant and accurate.
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