The pressure towards divorce that prevents the continuity of marriage is presented as oppression
Mitchell Leisen, Claude Binyon, and Fred MacMurray ended their triptych about “man and woman deeply realizing themselves, rediscovering themselves as persons through sincere self-giving” [1] with “Suddenly It’s Spring.” “» (1947). We are faced with a film not released in Spain, hardly accessible [2], which in Argentina was presented as “My Wife is Another.” In the case of the original version, it was a designation that was not easily recognizable, as it responded to a song that appeared in another Leisen film from 1944, Lady in the Dark.
(A woman in the shadows).
All of this, far from being a drawback to appreciating the film, undoubtedly has the incentive of recovering, or rather, almost discovering a hidden treasure, something that is completely worth trying from an investigation in the alliance between philosophy and cinema with a bioethics perspective. Leisen’s biographer provides an evaluative judgment that stimulates the direction of appreciating the value of this film.
Suddenly It’s Spring is probably the best of the three Claude Binyon scripts that Leisen directed. The characters played by MacMurray and Goddard are more realistic and not so incredibly young (they have been married for some time, but the war has separated them and now MacMurray wants a divorce). Binyon’s dialogue is funny; His situations are not far-fetched and the plot twists are less predictable than those of Take a Letter Darling and No Time for Love. Released in 1947, it was one of the highest-grossing films of the year for Paramount, earning $2,450,000, on an investment of $1,372,000. [3]
In effect, we find an argument in which the role reversal that has been tried in the previous films reaches a new, higher level, which combines penetration and paradox. We are no longer just faced with what situations that women usually experience are now experienced by men or vice versa. We see something more subtle and provocative: that what is often claimed as freedom, divorce, is presented as oppression when it acts in a way that prevents the continuation of marriage. And what often wants to present itself as a prison, marriage itself, is an expression of genuine personal freedom that chooses the relationship with the other spouse as the highest good of coexistence, which has mutually transformed the spouses.
When those who got married with the conscience and sincerity of loving each other recover the arguments of their conjugal love, it emerges “a new spring”
Strictly speaking, such an argument is not new. For example, the Oscar-winning The Awful Truth ((The Puritan Rogue, 1937), by the great Leo McCarey already presented this issue of defending one’s own marriage against the threat of divorce[4]. What Leisen and Binyon now bring to the table is a greater breadth of the narrative’s setting. It is not about presenting isolated cases, but rather presenting a panoramic vision of the need to recover the logic of mutual gift, in the face of the difficulties of resuming married life for men and women who had been separated during the Second War. World. And perhaps here we have to interpret the title of “And Suddenly It’s Spring”, translatable as “Suddenly It’s Spring.” When those who married with the conscience and sincerity of loving each other recover the arguments of their conjugal love, a new spring emerges, perhaps suddenly and with no less force than that which gave rise to the first love.
Claude Binyon is based this time on a story by P. J. Wolfson (1903-1979), who also collaborated on the script. And so, we see very early in the film that the role of the protagonist Mary Morely (Paulette Goddard) goes from being a lawyer specializing in separations and breakups to working as an expert in reconciliations for army women when they return to civilian life. She receives the significant nickname “Captain Lonelyhearts.” If before enlisting she saw divorce as the best solution to the problems with her own husband, Peter Morely (Fred MacMurray), now she will be convinced that it was a mistake and that she must apply to herself what she successfully advises others and others: fight for one’s own marriage as a genuine expression of freedom.
Let us also note that it was a marriage of lawyers. In fact, Peter’s way of referring to his wife was “Counselor.” It is not difficult to find here an illustrious precedent, two years earlier, of one of the most famous comedies that Cavell calls “remarriage comedies”, Adam’s Rib (1949) by George Cukor, with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.
In both cases it is clear that the very status of jurists with which the protagonists present themselves does not favor a solution to their most intimate problems of coexistence. Rather, it entangles them through the legalistic jargon typical of breakup agreements. If they want to resolve their marital disagreements, what will be asked of them will not be a negotiation from the rigidity of their own positions, but an evolution, a transformation. More specifically, that they move from a language of individual freedom that leads to placing hopes in laws and power, to another in which that same freedom is more fully realized through the mutual gift that conveys the deepest aspirations. from the heart.
Mary’s resistance and defense of her own marriage
The plot of “And Suddenly It’s Spring” develops from the story of these lawyers, who before joining the army agreed to get a divorce, at the initiative of Mary, the wife, although they did not substantiate it. Now, with the end of the race, four years later, she wants them to give each other a new chance. But Peter is engaged to Gloria Fay (Arleen Whelan) and, pressured by her, from the first moment of her reunion with Mary on the port dock, he already proposes that they execute her divorce. To make matters worse, Peter’s best client and friend, millionaire Jack Lindsay (Macdonald Carey) will find Mary very attractive, whom he had not met until then. Consequently, he will do everything possible to encourage them to divorce her and thus have opportunities for a relationship with her.
With many comic scenes, Leisen will draw how Mary postpones the moment of signing the divorce agreement, while Gloria and Jack will push in the other direction, putting pressure on a hesitant Peter. She, as a divorced woman, will want me to share her story: “I was unhappy once and you are unhappy now. As mature people we know that we could be happy together. So we must act quickly.”
However, Mary will know how to resist and defend her own marriage. She will make it clear to Peter that the attraction that made them choose each other in the first moment is still present, although those moments of intimacy are continually sabotaged by third parties. Traveling to work as a counselor in an army barracks, Peter approaches her to get her to sign the divorce. While they are together in her apartment, a corporal appears asking for her help because her husband wants to divorce her, jealous that she has gone to combat, while he was thrown away. Mary agrees to talk to them and asks Peter to witness it. Although he refuses at first, he ends up accepting and becomes involved in advising them, defending the corporal’s innocence and honor. Mary hopes to see that her husband can understand these reconciliation processes, although he remains stubborn about divorcing her, out of reverential fear of Gloria.
Jack advises Peter to act towards her in front of her military colleagues like a true troglodyte, brutalized and disrespectful, so that she will reject him. But Mary is able to read between the lines and accept her husband in this new, until now unknown, dimension. However, when Peter changes his tactics and ignores her, she calmly accepts that she must set him free precisely because she loves him. She signs the divorce and Peter leaves with Gloria. Mary begins to accept a possible relationship with Jack.
There the objects that woven their relationship, their joys and their disagreements appear, and that highlight that there was much that united them.
When everything seems lost in your marriage, a miracle occurs. On the last afternoon, when they distribute the things in the apartment that will be left for Mary, they open what they designate as the closet of her family skeleton. There the objects that woven their relationship appear (for example, some weights), reflecting both their joys and their disagreements. They highlight that there was much that united them, and that their distance was due to not having known how to resolve their differences maturely. Peter reacts, realizing that he still wants to be married to Mary. He plays the brute man again so that Gloria abandons him and runs to rescue Mary. She is in an elite restaurant with Jack, but when she hears Peter arrive doing the troglodyte and declaring her love, she goes with him without any hesitation.
In the final scene, we see Peter and Mary in the back seat of a taxi. One of the arguments that Mary used to reconcile the marriages of female soldiers was for the husbands to see “what the army does for a woman.” When Peter asks her what the army does, she responds by kissing him with complete devotion. Completely moved he begs her, “tell me again.” Leisen and Binyon seem to propose that women who have learned to give their lives for the community can live with more freedom and dedication in their marriage.
Conclusion: The willingness to reestablish a marriage, the possibility of happiness that only exists when it supports itself
With this ending, Mary and Peter Morley make it clear that the defense of their marriage is not an imposition, but the full exercise of freedom that leads to happiness. They make their own what Stanley Cavell insightfully explains.
…the validity or bond of marriage is not assured, or even legitimized, by the Church, the State, or sexual compatibility (and it is understood that these bonds are no deeper than those of marriage), but by what I call “the willingness to remarry [5]”, which is a way of continuing to affirm the happiness of the initial gesture by which we have overcome the difficulties. As if the possibility of happiness only exists when it supports itself.” [6]
Bioethics has in the defense of marriage as happiness one of its best allies to sustain the bonds between people, those that guarantee that no one, and especially the most vulnerable, are left defenseless, or exposed to the voracity of utilitarian thinking. This is what Karol Wojtyla inspiredly pointed out.
Love consists of the commitment to freedom: it is a gift of self, and “giving oneself” means precisely “limiting one’s own freedom for the benefit of another.” The limitation of freedom may in itself be something negative and unpleasant, but love makes it, on the contrary, positive, joyful and creative. Freedom is made for love. [7]
José-Alfredo Peris-Cancio – Professor and researcher in Philosophy and Cinema – Catholic University of Valencia San Vicente Mártir
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[1] Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (2005). Compendium of social doctrine of the Church. Madrid: BAC -Planeta, p. 57.
[2] It can be seen on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfKOTeFlRGA, in the original English version. The option to activate subtitles allows you to read them in English, with some salvageable typos.
[3] Chierichetti, D. (1997). Mitchell Leisen. Hollywood director. San Sebastián-Madrid: San Sebastián International Film Festival-Filmoteca Española, p. 204.
[4] Cf. “The recognition of the otherness of others according to Stanley Cavell or the resistance of marriage in The Awful Truth (1937) by Leo McCarey”, https://proyectoscio.ucv.es/filosofia-y-cine/ the-recognition-of-the-otherness-of-others-according-to-s-cavell-or-the-resistance-of-marriage-in-the-awful-truth-1937-by-Mccarey/
[5] I think it is preferable to translate “remarriage” as “marriage renewal” or “marriage refoundation.”
[6] Cavell, S. (2008). Can cinema make us better? Buenos Aires: Katz editions. p. 38
[7] Wojtyla, K. (2016). Love and responsibility. (J. G. Szmidt., Trans.) Madrid: Palabra, 166.
