Sunday, January 12, 2014

Silent Sundays: Get Your Man (1927)



“This must be fate!”

            I could never imagine being betrothed to someone from an early age. Just the word betrothed makes me shudder and my toes curl. I would never want my parents picking someone for me to marry. The guy would probably be a church going person with a big family and want like ten kids. All of those things are my nightmare! I honestly cannot even tell you what kind of guy I like I am such a picky bitch. My friend once asked me that because she noticed a lot of the TV characters/actors I liked were all completely different from each other in looks and personality (my love is Danny Messer played by Carmine Giovinazzo from CSI:NY). I am too independent and stubborn and free spirited for someone to ever pick a guy out for me. I could never imagine what being betrothed must have been like for people throughout history. I always think of all the kings and queens and how they had no choice but to marry who their parents picked out for them. I always think too what it must have been like if they hated each other and then had to have children!
            This rant does have something to do with the 1927 silent film Get Your Man.
            Robert Albin (Charles “Buddy” Rogers”) has been betrothed to Simone since they were both small children. Their parents are French aristocracy and they must carry on with outdated traditions. Seventeen years later Robert’s father is ready to arrange for his son and Simone to marry. Robert is willing to go along with his father’s arrangement until he meets an American girl in Paris named Nancy Worthington (Clara Bow). All throughout the day they run into each other at shops or out on the street. They finally talk and get to know each other at the Museum of Wax.
            Sometime later, Nancy is at the Albin estate. She crashed her car at the gate of the house. She has been recuperating at the house for some time when Robert comes back. They do not act like they know each other in front of everyone. Nancy asks Simone to go get her a pillow so she and Robert can be alone. To make Robert jealous and really want to be with her Nancy tells him she is engaged to someone back home (she is really not). She tells Robert she will break her engagement if he can break off his.
            Nancy finds out that Simone actually loves someone else as well. She would do anything to be with the other man. Nancy asks her why she does not just break off her engagement. Simone replies that her father would send her to a convent.
            In her plan to break off Robert and Simone’s engagement, Nancy becomes very friend with Simone’s father the Marquis. Robert goes to her window one night wanting to see her but the Marquis shows up with his flute and plays Nancy a song. She sees Robert hiding but before the Marquis can see him he runs away. Robert begins to get very jealous and very upset that the Marquis loves Nancy. Nancy is just going along with it. The Marquis later proposes to Nancy and she accepts only on the condition that he break off Simone’s engagement.
            Robert is beyond upset. Nancy gives him a letter saying that she loves him and will break off her engagement to the Marquis. Now Robert thinks that Nancy will wind up breaking off their engagement and does not want to take the risk of that heart break. He replies with his own letter that because of her he has lost all his faith in women and he is going to Africa to shoot lions and hopes he never comes back. Nancy manages to get Robert into her room by saying her window will not shut. She begins to make a big fuss and make a lot of noise. Poor Robert has no idea what is happening. Soon his father, the Marquis and Simone come into the room. They find Nancy and Robert in each other’s arms. Surprisingly the Marquis forgives her and still wants to marry her! Robert’s father asks Nancy if she really loves Robert and she says yes.
            Of course Robert and Nancy get together.

            Get Your Man was alright. It had its cute moments. This is a comedy but I did not really see the funniness in it. Clara Bow was good I actually liked her character because she was smart in everything she did to get Robert and to break his family and Simone’s out of their old tradition. Get Your Man is missing two reels but it is not hard to figure out what happened. The film is currently available to view on Youtube

No comments:

Post a Comment