199 Honor Among Lovers

[MichaelB]

HONOR AMONG LOVERS
(Dorothy Arzner, 1931)
Release date: 11 December 2023
Limited Edition Blu-ray (UK premiere)

Pre-order here.

Claudette Colbert (Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife) and Fredric March (An Act of Murder) co-star in Honor Among Lovers, a romantic comedy-drama directed by Dorothy Arzner.

Wall Street trader Jerry (March) is in love with his secretary, Julia (Colbert), but she turns him down to marry Philip (Monroe Owsley). A year later, realising the mistake she has made, she borrows money from Jerry, leading Philip to become dangerously jealous…

Co-written by Gertrude Purcell (Destry Rides Again) and featuring a scene-stealing supporting turn from Ginger Rogers (Tight Spot), Honor Among Lovers is a sizzling pre-Code love triangle.

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

• 2017 restoration from a 4K scan
• Original mono audio
• Audio commentary with academic and curator Eloise Ross (2023)
• Lucy Bolton on Ginger Rogers (2023): the academic assesses the early career of much-loved star
• Dorothy Arzner and WAAC: a selection of short films directed by Arzner for the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps during World War II
• Image gallery: promotional and publicity materials
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Limited edition exclusive with a new essay by Pamela Hutchinson, archival interviews and articles, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits
• UK premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited edition of 3,000 copies for the UK

All extras subject to change

#PHILE199B
BBFC cert: PG
REGION B
EAN: 5060697920642

[swo17]

Dorothy Arzner and WAAC: a selection of short films directed by Arzner for the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps during World War II

I wonder what these are. IMDb and Letterboxd don't show anything like this in her filmography

[Rayon Vert]

This is from senses of cinema.

She stopped directing features in 1943, for reasons that remain unclear (although playwright R.M. Vaughn has speculated on this question in his play “Camera, Woman”). Arzner continued working over the next three decades, making Women’s Army Corps training films and commercials for Pepsi, at the request of her friend and rumored lover Joan Crawford.

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/grea ... rs/arzner/

More here, in this recent article:

Although Arzner did not formally join the US Army as an officer – she turned down an offer to
become a major, in fact – she did collaborate with four WAAC enlistees on several short training films
(sample title: How to Groom Oneself ). Cast members included stock players from the Samuel Goldwyn
film company, some of whom had worked with Arzner on the 1934 Hollywood feature film Nana (Peary
and Kay, 1974). Arzner expertly guided the WAAC women through the production process, paying special
attention to their emerging skills as editors. Although the WAAC films were never shown to the public
and are presumed lost, the experience energised Arzner and prepared her for a new phase in her post-
Hollywood career years later.

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1 ... 020001.pdf
Exploring the work of Dorothy Arzner as a film-making teacher in southern California
Martin F. Norden

[MichaelB]

Final specs:

[Finch]

CineOutsider review

[swo17]

I thought it was kind of funny how the booklet explains that a third WAC short was not included because you can watch it on YouTube, and then spells out the link in a footnote. Of a booklet. Which you cannot click on. But let me go ahead and do that legwork for you:

https://youtu.be/TnjKPy0-vEY

[domino harvey]

If Indicator included it, presumably they would have correctly synced the audio to the video unlike the first talking segment of that YT link

[domino harvey]

Sad to say I thought this ended up being an awful package all around. The feature here is one of those dreadful artless pre-code movies, and this one fares worse than most because its central trio of characters are either impossibly virtuous or villainous which means that both sides of this struggle are boring. Charlie Ruggles does his best to do anything at all with his comic relief role, and Rogers is a non-entity, despite the deeply embarrassing supplement here that tries to flout her career via a feminist lens that is unmerited by reality. The military shorts are essentially anonymous doc work consisting of talking heads and a few simple shots interspersed with stock footage, though I was amused at the longer film’s visual suggestion that dark-haired women are studious WACs but blondes are frivolous layabouts. Certainly the only moment in any of these films where some kind of personality was exhibited, at any rate. I think it says volumes, actually, that KLSC will release anything the studios offer them but still didn’t bother with this. Y’all, Dorothy Arzner is just not happening.

[ChunkyLover]

Sad to say I thought this ended up being an awful package all around. The feature here is one of those dreadful artless pre-code movies, and this one fares worse than most because its central trio of characters are either impossibly virtuous or villainous which means that both sides of this struggle are boring. Charlie Ruggles does his best to do anything at all with his comic relief role, and Rogers is a non-entity, despite the deeply embarrassing supplement here that tries to flout her career via a feminist lens that is unmerited by reality. The military shorts are essentially anonymous doc work consisting of talking heads and a few simple shots interspersed with stock footage, though I was amused at the longer film’s visual suggestion that dark-haired women are studious WACs but blondes are frivolous layabouts. Certainly the only moment in any of these films where some kind of personality was exhibited, at any rate. I think it says volumes, actually, that KLSC will release anything the studios offer them but still didn’t bother with this. Y’all, Dorothy Arzner is just not happening.

I watched it earlier this year and I agree with your sentiments. I found myself struggling to care about anyone in the film because most of the characters were just unlikable.