The Wedding Night

Director: King Vidor King Vidor

Overview

In this Samuel Goldwyn production directed by King Vidor, the studio's intent was to make Russian-born Anna Sten a star, but it didn't succeed. Sten plays Manya Nowak, a Polish farm girl attracted to Tony Barrett (Gary Cooper), a novelist with writer's block who has retreated to a Connecticut farmhouse to find his muse. Barrett's wife Dora (Helen Vinson) misses the city and returns there, while Tony decides to use Manya as a character in his next novel. They become friends, and Tony learns that her straightlaced father Jan (Sigfried Rumann) has betrothed Manya to Fredrik Sobieski (Ralph Bellamy), whom she does not love. Manya and Tony spend a chaste night together when a blizzard shuts them in. Her father drags her home and demands that she marry Fredrik immediately. Many arguments and disagreements ensue. ~ Michael Betzold

Product Details

Release Date:	04/14/2015
UPC:	0888574086305
Original Release:	1935
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	1:23:00
Sales rank:	61,288

Special Features

Closed Caption

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Gary Cooper	Anthony 'Tony' Barrett
Anna Sten	Manya Novak
Helen Vinson	Dora Barrett
Ralph Bellamy	Fredrik Sobieski
Sig Rumann	Jan Nowak
Esther Dale	Kaise Nowak
Leonid Snegoff	Mr. Sobieski
Eleanor Wesselhoeft	Mrs. Sobieski
Milla Davenport	Grandmother
Agnes Anderson	Helena
Hilda Vaughn	Hezzie Jones
Walter Brennan	Bill Jenkins
Douglas Wood	Heywood
George Meeker	Gilly
Hedi Shope	Anna
Otto Yamaoka	Taka
Violet Axzelle	Frederica Sobieski
Ed Ebele	Uncle
Robert Bolder	Doctor
Alphonse Martell	Waiter
Robert Louis Stevenson II	Man at Party
Richard Powell	Truck Driver
August Tollaire	Party Guest,Actor
Dave Wengren	Party Guest
George Magrill	Party Guest
Bernard Siegel	Party Guest
Harry Semels	Party Guest
Miami Alvarez	Party Guest
Constance Howard	Party Guest
Jay Eaton	Party Guest
Jay Belasco	Party Guest
Alfred Newman	Composer

Technical Credits

Edith Fitzgerald

Samuel Goldwyn	Producer
King Vidor	Director
Edith Fitzgerald	Screenwriter

Scene Index

Disc #1 -- The Wedding Night
1. Chapter 1 [1:03]
2. Chapter 2 [4:14]
3. Chapter 3 [3:41]
4. Chapter 4 [2:17]
5. Chapter 5 [3:45]
6. Chapter 6 [2:00]
7. Chapter 7 [4:08]
8. Chapter 8 [4:56]
9. Chapter 9 [1:32]
10. Chapter 10 [3:15]
11. Chapter 11 [4:34]
12. Chapter 12 [2:55]
13. Chapter 13 [4:33]
14. Chapter 14 [2:58]
15. Chapter 15 [4:55]
16. Chapter 16 [4:12]
17. Chapter 17 [5:08]
18. Chapter 18 [4:27]
19. Chapter 19 [3:55]
20. Chapter 20 [3:09]
21. Chapter 21 [3:56]
22. Chapter 22 [5:05]
23. Chapter 23 [1:36]
24. Chapter 24 [:10]

Menu

Disc #1 -- The Wedding Night
   Chapters

Editorial Reviews

Notable as the third film in which producer Sam Goldwyn tried to make a star out of Russian actress Anna Sten, The Wedding Night has enough fringe benefits in its credits-Gary Cooper, director King Vidor, cinematographer Gregg Toland-to merit a look. Sten is in truth not bad, though certainly no Garbo or Dietrich, the actresses whose exoticism and allure Goldwyn was hoping to replicate in his "discovery." Her thick accent, which, according to Goldwyn biographer Scott Berg, drove Goldwyn to at least one on-set fit of apoplexy, is at least justified here by her role as Manya Nowak, the daughter of a Polish immigrant farmer (Sig Rumann). The script has dissipated writer Tony Barrett (Gary Cooper) falling in love with Manya after she becomes the muse who unblocks his latent talent. Barrett and his boozy wife (played wittily by Helen Vinson) are a couple of good-time swells when they're making the New York social scene, but send them into the country and, well, at least one of them wakes up and smells the roses. Manya is a second-generation daughter caught between the conventions of the old country and her sense that in America her choices should be less limited. But she is also virtuous; she can't consider a romance with Tony as long as he's married, though she's attracted to him as a sensitive alternative to her clod of an arranged husband, Frederik Sobieski, played by the dependable Ralph Bellamy. The Wedding Night also marks another film in which Vidor examines the virtues of rural living (see Our Daily Bread and Hallelujah! for comparison). Give Goldwyn credit: already taking a chance by foisting Sten again on an indifferent public, he didn't take the crowd-pleasing way out in resolving the story's conflicts. Not surprisingly, the film finished Sten's career in Hollywood for good.

All Movie Guide - Tom Wiener