Expected more

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

In Bridgefield, Connecticut, wealthy Alec Walker (Cary Grant) falls for widow single mom Julie Eden (Carole Lombard). He is in a loveless marriage to Maida (Kay Francis). He discovers her previous infidelity. He offers her a lucrative divorce but she refuses to surround the prestigue of his wealth. With disceets to his parents, she tries to destroy his relationship with Julie.This relies on making Maida a horrible villain and Alec's intentions pure. It feels too easy. There is some darkness here but the movie intends to keep the romanticism. The characters are presented as broad constructs. The plot is melodramatic worthy of any summer-reading romance novels. It also ends in an odd way. I don't see why Maida would go along with the lie and it leaves the audience hanging in the air. I understand the attempt at a poignant ending but I can see better ways to do it. As a romance with some bite, this does deliver on the main.

Considering the three main stars a curiously obscure drama from the legendary year of 1939. Superior soap opera contains some of the best work Cary Grant, Carole Lombard and Kay Francis ever put on film. Carole shows that she wasn't just a superb comedienne but a skilled dramatic actress. Cary is just right in blending the facile with the seriousness of the untenable situation he finds himself in. As good as both of them are, and they are great, even better is Kay Francis, a portrait in silky malevolence. This was inexplicably almost the end of her film career, she ended up in Poverty Row junk only a few years later and after watching this it's hard to understand how this didn't open up a whole new chapter for her as the wicked woman of cinema. Perhaps she was just too early for noir, she would have been perfect as a poison pit viper in many of those pictures.

Here's how I know a film is good: I was supposed to be doing something but I started watching "In Name Only." I said, well, I'll watch fifteen minutes (I had it on my DV-R). Ended up watching the whole thing.Cary Grant plays the unhappily married Alec Walker, and Kaye Francis is his wife Maida. It's a loveless marriage, though she claims otherwise. In fact, Alec has proof that Maida only loved one man, but rejected him because he didn't have any money. Maida's all about money and social standing.One day Alec runs into Julie Eden, a beautiful young widow, and the two strike up a friendship. Julie thinks it might be going somewhere until the night that Alec is in a car accident while driving home a friend of his wife's (who wants to have an affair with Alec). Julie finds out Alec is married and tells him she can't even be friends with him because it won't stay that way. Alec asks his wife for a divorce. She agrees, but she won't file in the states. She will do it discreetly, in Paris. Alec's parents, thinking it's just a vacation, accompany her. Guess what. It is just a vacation because somehow Maida doesn't get the divorce. And she doesn't intend to.The actors are all perfect in their roles, including Charles Coburn as Alec's mother and Nella Walker as his mother, both of whom love Maida and disapprove of Alec's interest in another woman. Grant and Lombard are beautiful together. Both were known for their excellent comic acting and timing, but drama came just as easily to both of them. Francis is the perfect patronizing wife, pretending martyrdom as she supposedly suffers in silence.Very absorbing and well worth seeing.

Always a Cary Grant fan and never able to resist a romance, I was very surprised with so many elements of this movie. Carole Lombard was wonderful as was Kay Francis. It definitely made me notice both actresses. Carole Lombard especially. I had to immediately read her bio and learn the awful news of how she died. Most importantly, I found it to be believable. It didn't have the usual 1930's style of overacting and of course Cary was irresistible. The style of the movie was authentic as well. The only scene which might have raised an eyebrow, was the car accident. The Walker family physician was excellently portrayed as was the senior Mr. Walker (whose name escapes me). Overall, one of my absolute favorites!