Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Winifred The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

gridoon2018 ....most of all, the somber ending - very rare for a 1930s movie. The production is A-class; Dorothy Arzner's direction is smooth; Sylvia Sidney looks exceptionally beautiful; and the script is thin but sophisticated: for example, when Sidney complains to March near the end of the movie that he has never told her that he loves her, you realize that it's true. *** out of 4.

DangerAwesome This is a movie that has a lot to say about 'modern' relationships, drinking, and feminism of the time. And for the most part the execution is very good.Merrily We Go to Hell is an extremely well acted film, but that to me is not the highlight of the movie. It's the writing with realistic characters and funny moments that are the best part of it. It is one of the better performances I've seen from Sylvia Sidney, which is a little odd as its one of her earliest.Fredric March stars as a man who doesn't deserve the love of a rich girl that has fallen for him. He's frequently drunk (the title of the film is his favorite drinking toast) and disappoints her at nearly every turn. It's hard to understand exactly what Joan (Sidney) likes about him so much. But that's the way love is sometimes. Joan takes the good with the bad and always seems to forgive the bad, no matter how appalling. Jerry (March) is still getting over his last relationship, attempting to drink it off.One moment in that part of the story was a highlight for me, where Jerry mentions his previous girlfriend. Joan asks if he has a picture of her, and he responds by saying he has one hidden away somewhere that he looks at once in a blue moon when he's feeling lonely. The movie immediately cuts to him arriving home and the picture of the girl he was mentioning is framed on the wall, with a personal note written to him on it. A clear omen for things to come.Merrily We Go to Hell does a fabulous job showing the dark side of drinking, something movies of the time rarely did. As the overall weakness of Jerry and Joan's relationship becomes unraveled, it takes Joan just a little longer than it seems like it should to finally get the courage to leave him. This is very much a sign of the times Depression-era picture. Showing the underlying unhappiness in the lives of socialites.If you are are a Carey Grant fan, he is essentially a pawn in the relationship game. As Jerry seems to be falling for his ex, the star of his new play, Joan attempts to give him a taste of his own medicine by going out with the other star of his play (Grant). Grant has maybe 4 or 5 lines.My only major criticism of the movie is the ending. I know it was a written rule in Hollywood at the time for movies to have a happy ending, but I don't consider the two of them getting back together a happy ending. Joan was right to leave him and she never should have taken him back. She was better off without him. Ending on the scene where she leaves would have been a better ending climatically, as well as been a happier ending. But in the time period that ending would not have been possible.

mark.waltz Funny drunks aren't realistic drunks, and until Billy Wilder created a great part for Ray Milland, alcoholism was rarely treated seriously. Fredric March is a struggling playwright, favorite of the party scene who hasn't hit the big time. He falls in love with wealthy socialite Sylvia Sidney whose domineering father (George Irving) despises March and does everything in his power to dissuade her from marrying him. But they do, success follows for March, and his illness leads to degradation and tragedy. To teach her husband a lesson, in the meantime, Sidney becomes a party girl herself, flaunts her own discretions (with a young Cary Grant, playing one of the actors in the play), hoping he'll leave his current fling (the play's leading lady, Adrienne Allen) and come back to his senses.These characters are all presented as worthless bon vivants, even the successful theater people, and March's comical sidekick (Richard "Skeets" Gallagher). The title is March's toast every time he takes a drink, and a metaphor for the dead lives that the characters are leading. This leads to a real downer of a story, shocking in its choice of pre-code sins, a party sequence which is almost an orgy in its set-up with sultry music and dialog. Irving's father is truly a nasty character with no motivation other than total control and possessional of his only child for acting as he does. The Paramount pre-code look is lavish, but it is basically "Dante's Inferno" without the end result of that classic poem's destination.

kidboots The title was immortalized by the British censor, who apparently insisted that the last word be replaced by a dash!!! People flocking to the movie for a bit of titilation would have felt pretty disappointed by this pap - although with Sylvia Sidney and Frederic March in the leads - it was high grade soap opera. Taken from Cleo Lucas' novel "I, Jerry, Take Thee Joan", even though it got Sylvia out of prison and into high society (she was constantly on Best Dressed Lists during the 30s), the plot made sure she suffered like never before.Joan (Sylvia Sidney) meets Jerry (Frederic March) at a New Year's Eve party. She is instantly taken with him and his eccentric humor. He is very drunk and teaches her his "theme song" "Merrily We Go to Hell", but when she says goodbye, he is too drunk to remember who she is. For her, it is love at first sight, but she puts up with a lot from him - even passing out drunk at their engagement party - her father is not amused.They marry and after an initial struggle, Jerry finally gets his play produced - with his old girlfriend Claire in the lead. Adrienne Allen is right up there with Sidney and March, she was just super as the neurotic wife in "The Night of June 13th" and she brings intelligence to this "other woman" role. Of course, after months on the wagon, Jerry falls back into his old drunken ways but the twist is, Joan follows him "Merrily to Hell". When she becomes ill through too much riotous living, she returns to her father, who protects her and refuses to let Jerry near her. The movie ends with a repentant Jerry, at the hospital, vowing, as Joan clings to life, to give up his old ways and telling Joan those three little words (I love you) that she has never heard him speak before. I tend to agree with the blurb on my DVD cover, who knows whether Jerry will stick to his pledge? During the movie, he had been "on the wagon" a couple of times and when Joan rashly starts to drink, he welcomes her as a drinking buddy - I would have thought that would have been his turning point - but no!!! Skeets Gallagher is always great to have around and he is just marvellous as Jerry's tap dancing drinking buddy. Florence Britton is beautiful and elegant as Joan's concerned friend.Recommended.