So much average

Fantastic!

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I always wanted to see this movie. It was one that Joan Crawford wanted to do after so many mediocre movies in the mid-30's. But I just did not like it. It was based on Keith Winter's Broadway hit but it was probably overly sanitized for the post-1933 censors that did not allow characters to have real problems unless they were killed for their human indiscretions. The cast is tops. Youthful Joan , the lovely Margaret Sullivan, the excellent Robert Young, the charming Melvyn Douglas and the superb character actress Fay Bainter. The script just does not properly develop why these characters especially Bainter's are so conflicted. And Joan seems too mannered in that way that made it look like she was just walking through the part. Not one of Joan's classics but watchable nonetheless. Bainter walks away with it though her character's sudden change at the end does not make any sense.

Joan Crawford disrupts a family in "The Shining Hour," a 1938 film also starring Melvyn Douglas, Margaret Sullavan, Robert Young, and Fay Bainter.Crawford is Olivia Reilly, a New York City dancer who works in a nightclub with a partner doing an act sort of modeled on Astaire and Rogers though it's clearly down several levels. Melvyn Douglas is Henry Linden, a gentleman farmer who wants to take her away from all this to Wisconsin, and sick of her present life, she marries him. Arriving on the farm, she finds herself hated by Henry's sister, Hannah (Bainter), lusted after by Henry's brother David (Young) and loved and envied by David's wife Judy (Sullavan). Before long, David is making overt passes, Henry has figured out David is in love with his wife, and in spite of herself, Judy begins to suspect the same thing.This film is a little overdone, as it seems like the tension in the house never lets up. David always looks miserable, Judy always looks nervous, Olivia is always trying to be nice except when she's trading barbs with Hannah, and Hannah is a bitch. How any of them stood one another for more than ten minutes is a miracle. We are never allowed to see any happiness. Also, the entire end of the film is a mess -- Judy takes a ridiculous step to make everything right, but it all goes in the opposite direction. The most absurd part of the whole film, without giving anything away, is that one of the characters ends up wearing bandages - covering their nose and mouth with only the eyes showing. Now, how is anyone supposed to breathe like that? How did the actor breathe, in fact? Joan Crawford looks beautiful and is very good in her role as a city slicker who wants to love her husband and environment but is finding it difficult. Tall, elegant Melvyn Douglas, who thirty years later would emerge as one of the truly great actors in cinema, does a wonderful job as the even-tempered one of the family. For so many years, he played the family friend, the family lawyer, the other man - how, with all that magnificent talent, did he ever stand it? Robert Young is fine as David, though Margaret Sullavan is so nice and sweet and so much in love with him that he's somewhat unlikable for coming on to Olivia. As the vicious Hannah, Fay Bainter is effective, though I'd have thrown her out of the house.All in all, it's just okay.

I'm not quite sure what the point of THE SHINING HOUR is since the talky screenplay has everyone telling everyone else what their theories are of the relationships between men and women. Perhaps it's selfish people deserve each other. That's what JOAN CRAWFORD seems to think when she admits that she has everything she wants, including wealthy MELVYN DOUGLAS and a lovely house and everything that goes with luxurious country living. A far cry from the chorus girl existence she knew before.ROBERT YOUNG only knows that he's smitten with Crawford to the point where his wife, MARGARET SULLAVAN, can't help noticing it. She's the good girl type, warm and appealing in the way she greets Crawford as a new member of the family when she married MELVYN DOUGLAS. But soon she's all misty-eyed at the thought that Robert Young doesn't love her any more.The story gets a darker element from the bitter woman that FAY BAINTER plays, as the sister of Douglas and Young who resents the intrusion of Crawford, whom she deems not worthy of them. She's so driven by her dislike of Crawford that she takes some desperate measures which don't seem a bit believable--even so far as setting a new house on fire to destroy a marriage she doesn't believe in.None of it really makes much sense, when you stop to think about it. And oddly enough, the ever reliable FAY BAINTER isn't the least bit effective or interesting as Hannah, the cold-hearted woman who only has a change of heart in the film's final scene. Her motivations, and those of MARGARET SULLAVAN who is all self-sacrificing nobility, are never really made convincing.Watchable for the professional poise of JOAN CRAWFORD and the others, who are really giving this soap opera more dignity than it deserves.

Beyond soap opera. This movie is pure camp. Unintentionally hilarious at times. It's movies like this that caused theatre owners in 1938 to declare Joan Crawford "box-office poison."