A Bill of Divorcement (1940 film)

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A Bill of Divorcement (1940 film) - Wikipedia

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A Bill of Divorcement

Directed by	John Farrow
Screenplay by	Dalton Trumbo
Based on	A Bill of Divorcement by Clemence Dane
Produced by	Robert Sisk
Starring	Maureen O'Hara Adolphe Menjou Fay Bainter
Cinematography	Nicholas Musuraca
Edited by	Harry Marker
Music by	Roy Webb
Production company	RKO Radio Pictures
Release date	May 31, 1940 (1940-05-31)
Running time	74 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

A Bill of Divorcement is a 1940 film directed by John Farrow. It was also known as Never to Love and was based on a 1921 British play of the same name written by Clemence Dane that had been filmed in 1932 with John Barrymore and Katharine Hepburn.

Plot

Hilary Fairchild returns home after a long spell in a lunatic asylum. He has regained his sanity but finds that his strong-willed daughter Sydney, now an adult, is planning to marry and that his wife has divorced him.

Cast

Maureen O'Hara as Sydney Fairchild
Adolphe Menjou as Hilary Fairchild
Fay Bainter as Margaret Fairchild
Herbert Marshall as Gray Meredith
Dame May Whitty as Hester Fairchild
Patric Knowles as John Storm
C. Aubrey Smith as Dr. Alliot
Ernest Cossart as Rev. Dr. Pumphrey
Kathryn Collier as Basset
Lauri Beatty as Susan

Production

The film was announced in November 1939 with the lead roles allocated to Adolphe Menjou and Maureen O'Hara. O'Hara had just moved to Hollywood with Charles Laughton and appeared in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Producer Robert Sisk and director John Farrow had made a number of films together, including the popular Five Came Back (1939).^[1] It was considered an "A" picture, Farrow and Sisk's first such film at RKO.^[2]

Filming began on December 2, 1939.^[3]^[4]

Reception

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Theodore Strauss wrote: "Under the restrained direction of John Farrow, the performances of an ably selected cast are fused into a film that is continuously eloquent and moving. ... Out of a familiar play the producers have again drawn a suspensive drama of courage and despair."^[5]

The film recorded a loss of $104,000.^[6]

References

^ "SCREEN NEWS HERE AND IN HOLLYWOOD". New York Times. November 1, 1939. ProQuest 102790700.
^ Louella O. Parsons (November 1, 1939). "Close-Ups and Long-Shots Of the Motion Picture Scene". The Washington Post. ProQuest 151106620.
^ Schallert, E. (November 18, 1939). "DRAMA". Los Angeles Times. ProQuest 165040168.
^ Churchill, Douglas W. (November 23, 1939). "SCREEN NEWS HERE AND IN HOLLYWOOD". New York Times. ProQuest 102920596.
^ Strauss, Theodore (1940-07-12). "The Screen in Review: The Capitol Presents Joan Crawford and Fredric March in 'Susan and God'—'A Bill of Divorcement' and 'Devil's Island' Also Are Seen". The New York Times. p. 11.
^ Jewell, Richard; Harbin, Vernon (1982). The RKO Story. New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House. p. 148. ISBN 9780706412857.

External links

A Bill of Divorcement at IMDb
A Bill of Divorcement at the TCM Movie Database

Films directed by John Farrow

The Spectacle Maker (1934) (short)
Tarzan Escapes (1936) (partial)
Men in Exile (1937)
West of Shanghai (1937)
She Loved a Fireman (1937)
Broadway Musketeers (1938)
Little Miss Thoroughbred (1938)
The Invisible Menace (1938)
My Bill (1938)
Comet Over Broadway (1938) (uncredited)
Women in the Wind (1939)
The Saint Strikes Back (1939)
Sorority House (1939)
Five Came Back (1939)
Full Confession (1939)
Reno (1939)
A Bill of Divorcement (1940)
Married and in Love (1940)
Wake Island (1942)
Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942)
China (1943)
The Hitler Gang (1944)
You Came Along (1945)
Two Years Before the Mast (1946)
California (1947)
Blaze of Noon (1947)
Calcutta (1947)
Easy Come, Easy Go (1947)
Beyond Glory (1948)
The Big Clock (1948)
Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)
Red, Hot and Blue (1949)
Alias Nick Beal (1949)
Where Danger Lives (1950)
Copper Canyon (1950)
Submarine Command (1951)
His Kind of Woman (1951)
Ride, Vaquero! (1953)
Hondo (1953)
Plunder of the Sun (1953)
Botany Bay (1953)
A Bullet Is Waiting (1954)
The Sea Chase (1955)
Back from Eternity (1956)
The Unholy Wife (1957)
John Paul Jones (1959)

v t e Dalton Trumbo
Screenplays	Road Gang (1936) Love Begins at 20 (1936) Devil's Playground (1937) Fugitives for a Night (1938) A Man to Remember (1938) Five Came Back (1939) Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence (1939) The Flying Irishman (1939) Curtain Call (1940) A Bill of Divorcement (1940) Kitty Foyle (1940) The Lone Wolf Strikes (1940) We Who Are Young (1940) You Belong to Me (1941) The Remarkable Andrew (1942) Tender Comrade (1944) A Guy Named Joe (1944) Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945) Gun Crazy (1950) He Ran All the Way (1951) Rocketship X-M (1951) The Prowler (1951) Roman Holiday (1953) Carnival Story (1954) They Were So Young (1954) The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) The Boss (1956) The Brave One (1956) The Deerslayer (1957) The Green-Eyed Blonde (1957) From the Earth to the Moon (1958) Cowboy (1958) Spartacus (1960) Exodus (1960) The Last Sunset (1961) Town Without Pity (1961) Lonely Are the Brave (1962) The Sandpiper (1965) Hawaii (1966) The Fixer (1968) The Horsemen (1971) F.T.A. (1972) Executive Action (1973) Papillon (1973) Ishi: The Last of His Tribe (1978)
Screenplay/Directed	Johnny Got His Gun (1971)
Novels	Eclipse (1935) Johnny Got His Gun (1939) Night of the Aurochs (1979)
Adaptations	Roman Holiday (1987)
Portrayals	The Hollywood Ten (1950 documentary) Hollywood on Trial (1976 documentary) Trumbo (2007 documentary) Trumbo (2015 film)
Related	Christopher Trumbo (son) Hollywood blacklist Cortes (unproduced miniseries, based on Trumbo's screenplay Montezuma)

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