I Met My Love Again (1938)

One of the things I find amusing about classic films is how quickly the characters fall in love then get married. I can remember sitting through a film class in college and the teacher was showing us King Kong. He paused the scene where Fay Wray and Bruce Cabot talk on the boat and he admits he likes her after all the times he kept saying that women should not be allowed on ships and my teacher said “they fall in love so quickly in the movies.” The whole class laughed because it is true. The characters fall in love so quickly and then have a fall out just as fast that is usually due to a misunderstanding or impatience. The 1938 film I Met My Love Again starring Henry Fonda and Joan Bennett contains both scenarios in this drawn out soap opera.

            The film starts off in 1925. Julie Weir (Bennett) wants to marry Ives Towner (Fonda) right away after he proposes to her. He asks her to wait while he becomes somebody. Two years later Julie and Ives are still engaged and she is tired of waiting for him. Julie throws a Christmas party at her house but she does not show. Everyone is worried about her she went out sleigh riding during the day and has not been back since. Fortunately Julie is safe she found a cabin in the woods where a man named Michael is staying. He is there from New York City to work on his book. They talk the entire night.

            Julie and Michael elope. Her aunt wants Ivers to go to New York to try and bring Julie home before she makes a bigger mistake. Ives’s mother tries to tell him he is better off without Julie because now he can accomplish as much as he wants. He gets upset with his mother and stalks off to New York. Once there he sees how happy Michael and Julie are together.

            Michael and Julie move to Paris. Michael goes off the handle having a good time. At a party he pretends to have a duel with someone. They both thought their guns were empty. Unfortunately the other man’s gun was loaded and Michael dies. A few years later Julie is still living with her daughter in Paris. She feels she cannot go back home and does not want to. Her aunt sends her a check part of which she wants Julie to use to come and visit.

            Ives is not a teacher at their old university. His mother calls him in the middle of his class to tell him that Julie is back in town. He is still in love with her. Ives and Julie meet each other in the woods by accident. Their reunion is awkward.

            A student in his class named Brenda is in love with him. Ives does not like the idea of a student liking him and asking him to go out with him but he gives in and has a good time with Brenda. His mother thinks she knows her son so well and thinks he is out with Julie all night. The mother goes over to Julie’s house to have a talk with her about seeing Ives. Ives’s sister has an idea he has not been with Julie.

            Brenda calls her father telling him she might be getting married to Ives. She wants her father to give him a job. She tells her father that this is not the same thing as when she was in love with the chauffer.

            There is a family dinner at Ives’s house. His mother overhears someone asking him who he might bring since it has to be an alumnus. His mother butts into the conversation and says that Julie will not be going to the party her aunt is sick. He calls and asks Julie and she goes. That night Brenda goes to Ives’s house to speak to his mother. The mother tells Brenda to go Ives quickly to get him away from Julie. Brenda is outrageously jealous of Julie. At the party she throws water in Julie’s face. Julie runs out into the storm. Ives runs after Julie. She tells him she still loves him. They run to her aunt’s house yelling that they are going to be married that night. Julie’s daughter is not happy about her mother getting married when she overhears outside her door. Ivers’s mother, sister, and her husband come to Julie’s house. He tells his mother he knows what he wants and he wants Julie.

            Ives hears that Brenda tried to kill herself because him. With everything going on Julie says they cannot go back home if they run away to get married everyone will think they are selfish.

            Julie takes the car that Brenda is in. She asks Brenda if she really loves Ives and she does. Julie takes off speeding down a road where a bridge is out. Scared, Brenda confesses she did not really try to kills herself. When Julie gets back she and Ives run away and get married.

            I so wish that Henry Fonda and Joan Bennett were in a better film together. They were very good paired together but their characters and the story were not good. The one who played Ives’s mother was totally annoying you wanted to hit the mother she was awful.

            I Met My Love Again was a boring soap opera. The plot with Brenda was terrible and annoying. It was just funny to watch how quickly the characters fall in and out of love. Only watch I Met My Love Again if you are a fan of Henry Fonda or Joan Bennett or both like I am otherwise just skip it.