I Want a Divorce (1940) DVD-R

Starring Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Gloria Dickson, Frank Fay, Jessie Ralph, Harry
Davenport, Conrad Nagel
Directed by Ralph Murphy

Print: black/white
Runtime: 75 min.
Genre: comedy
Print Quality: B

Ironically, the marriage between Dick Powell and Joan Blondell was beginning to fall apart
at the time they costarred in Paramount's I Want a Divorce. The film manages to sustain
two plotlines, with newlyweds Alan and Geraldine MacNally (Powell and Blondell) beginning
to have second thoughts about their union, while David and Wanda Holland (Conrad Nagel
and Gloria Dickson) are in the last stages of their divorce proceedings. It so happens that
Alan is the struggling attorney handling the Holland case, much to his wife's chagrin. As the
hearings proceed, Alan and Geraldine drift further and further apart, only to abruptly reunite
when Wanda Holland's suicide after losing custody of her son forces Alan to rethink his
own priorities. Often written off as a mere comedy, I Want a Divorce has a surprising
amount of meat on its bones.