One More River **** (1934, Colin Clive, Diana Wynyard, Mrs Patrick Campbell, Jane Wyatt) – Classic Movie Review 10,489

‘Faithful to a man she hated… not daring to kiss a man who loved her! Neither husband nor lover could claim her.’

Director James Whale’s 1934 drama One More River [Over the River] is based on the 1933 novel by the Nobel Prize-winner John Galsworthy and has a luxurious all-star ensemble cast: Colin Clive, Diana Wynyard, C Aubrey Smith, Jane Wyatt in her screen debut, Lionel Atwill, Henry Stephenson, Alan Mowbray, E E Clive, stage actress Mrs Patrick Campbell in one of her very few films, Frank Lawton, Reginald Denny and Gilbert Emery. It is produced and distributed by Universal Pictures, who grabbed the film rights to Galsworthy’s bestseller and gave the prestige project to its star director, James Whale.

It tells of the lives of an upper middle class English family, the Cherell sisters, and their husbands and lovers, focusing on the messy divorce of Clare, Lady Corven (Wynyard) from her brutal husband Sir Gerald Corven (Clive), who puts a much-disguised private detective on her trail, after she walks out and books passage on a ship, where she is befriended by kind young Tony Croom (Frank Lawton), as well as on the doomed relationship of Clare’s sister, debutante Dinny Charwell (Wyatt).

Based on John Galsworthy’s final book Over the River, the last installment of his The Forsyte Saga, this superior romantic melodrama brings with it a very English attitude of table manners and trembling stiff upper-lips. It all ends up in the divorce courts in a great climactic courtroom scene, beautifully handled by director Whale. One More River is a forgotten gem of a film, exceedingly well made and performed by the British stalwarts, especially by Wynyard, with a particularly polished script by R C Sherriff writer of Journey’s End (1930).

It was filmed at Universal Studios, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, from May to July 1934.

One More River is a tale of a possibly unfaithful wife, romantic rivalry and a brutal husband, and was one of the first films to be subjected to the strong censorship of the Production Code Administration under Joseph I Breen, starting in mid-1934, a time when divorce was considered scandalous. But ‘not daring to kiss a man who loved her’ – that must have pleased the Production Code.

James Whale is notably the director of Journey’s End (1930), Waterloo Bridge (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House, (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Show Boat (1936) and The Man in the Iron Mask (1939). Ian McKellen plays him in a biopic, Gods and Monsters (1998).

Whale is also the director of The Impatient Maiden (1932), The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933), By Candlelight (1933), One More River (1934), Remember Last Night? (1935), The Road Back (1937), The Great Garrick (1937), Sinners in Paradise (1938), Wives Under Suspicion (1938), Port of Seven Seas (1938), Green Hell (1940) and They Dare Not Love (1941).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,489

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