The English title, "Perfect Strangers," was changed to "Vacation From Marriage" for its USA distribution. It's amazing that it ever was finished. Aside from a good deal of trouble concerning the script, it was filmed in 1944 when there was a shortage of sets and equipment and everything else in England except myriad Buzz Bombs.
The story had been done before. Two stodgy spouses undergo some sort of traumatic experience and find their marriage improved as a result. Here, the spouses are the stuffy and boring Robert Donat ("The Thirty Nine Steps") and the whimpering hypochondriacal Deborah Kerr. The traumatic event is a three-year separation for war service -- he in the Navy and she a Wren.
During the separation they change by force of circumstances. Donat shaves his mustache and has a fling with a blond. Kerr, under the guidance of the fey Glynis Johns, has her hair redone and acquires self confidence. When they are brought back to England to spend their leave together, each liberated spouse still carries the image of the stultifying other. They didn't even kiss good-bye at their departure. Kerr, afraid to enter their apartment, calls him hysterically and demands a divorce. They meet at a nearby pub, The Coach and Horses, and each is surprised but wary at the change in the other. They flirt, quarrel, part, and make up. It ends happily with an embrace in front of the window of their flat, overlooking a blitzed London overhung with barrage balloons, a fresh new morning.
It's all very well done. There aren't any belly laughs but a viewer may be forgiven for smiles of recognition at the minor ironies of life that are on full display here.
Donat is his smooth self. Kerr is winsome and girlish, slightly wall eyed, her voice slightly quivering, and completely winning, so innocent in appearance and demeanor that it would be obscene to think of her legs. I couldn't help it so I did it anyway.
You'll probably enjoy this. The script isn't high flown. This isn't Shakespeare; it's everyday life. But all the characters are precise and somewhat elegant in their speech. The Brits always sound a little more elegant than the rest of us.
The story had been done before. Two stodgy spouses undergo some sort of traumatic experience and find their marriage improved as a result. Here, the spouses are the stuffy and boring Robert Donat ("The Thirty Nine Steps") and the whimpering hypochondriacal Deborah Kerr. The traumatic event is a three-year separation for war service -- he in the Navy and she a Wren.
During the separation they change by force of circumstances. Donat shaves his mustache and has a fling with a blond. Kerr, under the guidance of the fey Glynis Johns, has her hair redone and acquires self confidence. When they are brought back to England to spend their leave together, each liberated spouse still carries the image of the stultifying other. They didn't even kiss good-bye at their departure. Kerr, afraid to enter their apartment, calls him hysterically and demands a divorce. They meet at a nearby pub, The Coach and Horses, and each is surprised but wary at the change in the other. They flirt, quarrel, part, and make up. It ends happily with an embrace in front of the window of their flat, overlooking a blitzed London overhung with barrage balloons, a fresh new morning.
It's all very well done. There aren't any belly laughs but a viewer may be forgiven for smiles of recognition at the minor ironies of life that are on full display here.
Donat is his smooth self. Kerr is winsome and girlish, slightly wall eyed, her voice slightly quivering, and completely winning, so innocent in appearance and demeanor that it would be obscene to think of her legs. I couldn't help it so I did it anyway.
You'll probably enjoy this. The script isn't high flown. This isn't Shakespeare; it's everyday life. But all the characters are precise and somewhat elegant in their speech. The Brits always sound a little more elegant than the rest of us.