blanche-2 Nothing gets a woman's heart pumping a little quicker than an early Gary Cooper movie, and The Wedding Night from 1935 is no exception.Cooper is writer Tony Barratt - think F. Scott Fitzgerald - whose publisher doesn't want his next book and tells him whatever he had, he's lost it. So he and his wife Dora (Helen Vinson) take off for an inherited country home. Tony becomes intrigued by the family of Polish émigrés who live nearby, particularly the beautiful daughter, Manya Novak (Sten).Okay, here is something that confuses me. My friends are of Polish descent. They called their sister Mary Manya. So far, so good.This family's last name is Novak. That's Czech.And they say Dasvidaniya, which is Russian. Go figure.Back to the story. After the father (Sig Ruman) buys a field from Tony for $5,000, Dora wants to hightail it back to New York, now that they have some money. Tony decides to stay. He begins writing a book about the family.He and Manya fall in love, though it's unconsummated. She is engaged to Fredrik Sobieski (Ralph Bellamy) a real bumpkin, whom she doesn't love. When she decides not to marry him, her father has a fit, and the engagement is back on. Meanwhile, Tony wants a divorce.Bittersweet film with lovely performances by Cooper and Sten. Cooper in the beginning is immaculate in a suit, and he and Dora are part of the high-class social set. He did play many sophisticated roles in the '30s, but Mr. Deeds and westerns would follow. Instead of strong and silent, here he's animated and romantic.This film was apparently supposed to introduce Anna Sten to American audiences. Sam Goldwyn wanted to build her up as the next Garbo. I don't know about you, but I don't remember Greta Garbo playing a farmer with dowdy clothes. If he was going to build her up, why not showcase her beauty? She was beautiful, and her acting is very good. To me she hasn't the presence of Garbo or Dietrich, but I think Goldwyn could have given her better treatment.Helen Vinson really has the strongest role, and she was up to it.Very poignant story, directed by King Vidor, and beautifully photographed.

MartinHafer I like Gary Cooper films--he was an excellent actor and usually starred in wonderful films. However, this one is very forgettable and I just felt bored as I watched it. While the film isn't BAD, it is pretty much just a time-passer.Cooper plays a fun-loving writer. He and his wife were so busy having fun and partying in New York that they quality of his work had sharply declined and he was all but broke. As a result, he decided they should move into a home in rural Connecticut. Oddly, Connecticut in this film looks nothing like I expected it to look--it was all tobacco farm land and, at times, blizzards. His wife is a spoiled lady and soon she leaves along with the household staff. So, a neighbor lady (Anna Sten) comes to help with housekeeping and a romance begins to bloom--even though he's still married and she's engaged to Ralph Bellamy. By the way, as usual, because Bellamy is in the film, you know that he and Sten will never live happily ever after as man and wife! This is because no actor in the history of Hollywood ever cast as a fiancé and left all alone at the end of the film like Bellamy. He must have played this role in about a dozen films, so there isn't a lot of suspense in this regard--though he gets closer to getting the girl and living happily ever after than in most of these films.The film is in some ways like a "Pre-Code" film, even though when it came out the Production Code had just come into its own. That's because the main theme is about married man Cooper falling in love with a woman who is engaged to be married--something you just wouldn't see in later Hollywood films of the 1930s. However, you can also see that since the Code was just created, the film ended in a way that was in line with the spirit of the Hays Office--the love between Cooper and Sten COULD not be acted upon. So, in many ways, this film is like a transition between Pre- and Post-Code films.

janice143 I just watched this movie this morning on Turner Cable Movies. Gary Cooper, in my opinion, was the most handsome movie actor, ever. Writer Tony and his wife Dora move to Connecticut to his ancestral home. Actually a beautiful big country home that I would love to live in! He meets his Polish neighbors who buy a plot of land from him for $5,000. His socialite wife hates the house and the desolation of living in the country. Gary (Tony) gives his wife the $5,000 so she can go back to New York to see her old friends and "shop." The daughter of the Polish neighbor, Manya, delivers milk to Tony every morning, then cooks him breakfast, and eventually comes to take care of the house. Tony starts writing a book about Manya and her family. Manya and Tony start falling in love. But Manya is committed to marry a man whom she does not love, Frederik played by Ralph Bellamy. Then the wife comes back, and Tony tells her he wants a divorce, that he loves Manya. The wedding between Frederik and Manya takes place, but Frederik gets totally drunk and realizes that Manya loves Tony. Frederik goes off to Tony's house to kill him. Then there is the tragedy that ends the movie.When I was watching the movie, I was wondering where this movie was filmed. There is no "filming location" listed in IMDb. It is quite obvious that there are several outdoor scenes, not on a sound stage.A lovely movie. I enjoyed it tremendously.

bkoganbing Gary Cooper, in a thinly veiled characterization of F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a writer living with a socialite wife in New York City and doing quite well on the party circuit. But he's lost his muse and literally has to move back to his family's ancestral home in Connecticut where the rent is free.While there he gets involved with some Polish immigrants who have bought a lot of acreage in the Nutmeg state for tobacco growing and farmer Jean Hersholt wants some of Cooper's land. Needing the cash, Cooper agrees. He finds the people there fascinating in an sociological sort of way. And he finds Hersholt's daughter Anna Sten far more intriguing.The Wedding Night was supposed to be the launching of a new Sam Goldwyn discovery in Anna Sten. But for some reason she didn't catch on with the public though she does give a fine performance. There's a lengthy list of speculative reasons why she never caught on, some have been mentioned by other reviewers.However the best performance in the film is Helen Vinson as Cooper's wife. She starts off giving the impression she's a flighty airhead, but actually that's not the case. Vinson usually was playing the other woman in her film career, here she reverses type as the wronged wife. You do feel sorry for her, she's done nothing to deserve Cooper's infidelity.For those who are curious about Anna Sten as she's become something of a symbol as to how not to showcase a talent, The Wedding Night might be worth a look.