1936 – Irene Dunne
Theodora Goes Wild
You know what? I liked this movie. And I liked Irene Dunne in the role. The character of Theodora Lynn had some diversity, some depth some emotion. She wasn’t just a one-note character. And that range was inherent to the part. On the one hand, she was a conservative woman who wouldn’t be caught dead reading a racy novel. On the other hand, she was the author of just such a novel, hiding her success as an author from the ladies of her little town.
Irene Dunne played both parts perfectly well. She was prim and proper one minute, then dancing, and drinking, and falling in love the next. And Dunne was believable in both sides of the woman. In the first half of the movie, she had to play the uptight woman who was afraid of her secret getting out. In the second half, she fully accepted herself as a woman who no longer had to worry about what other people thought of her.
But it wasn’t just how Irene Dunne acted the part, which she did very skillfully. It was also how the character was written and the point of the plot which drove Theodora’s actions. The man who falls for her is kind of a jerk as he forces her to break out of her repressed life, turn away from the conservative friends who would consider her true self to be a scandal. But she does it, and as it turns out, she is far better off for the change. But then, later in the movie, it becomes apparent that he is also living a double life, one of repression and misery, and the other of happiness and love. But of course, he won’t change for her as he forced her to do for him. But that’s when she truly goes wild. She finds a way to force him to come clean to the world, and I liked that. What was good for the goose was also good for the gander, so to speak.
This isn’t the first movie I have seen with Irene Dunne, but I think it is my favorite. I thought she did a wonderful job, and she absolutely deserved the Oscar nomination. In fact, I’d have been OK with it if she had won. She was beautiful and charming, and thoroughly enjoyable to watch on the screen. And she was a great romantic leading lady. This is the kind of movie I would watch again.