The Runaway Bride (1930)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Boring

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The Runaway Bride (1930)* 1/2 (out of 4) Early talkie has Mary Gray (Mary Astor) eloping with Richard Mercer (David Newell) but as the two are looking over their new apartment she realizes that she's made a horrible mistake. Richard locks her up in the apartment and leaves her when later a detective comes pounding on the door. He finally gets in and for some reason at the same time a criminal climbs into the window and kills him. Fearing what to do, Mary gives the maid some cash in exchange for an employment card where Mary goes to hide as a cook for a rich man (Lloyd Hughes) but soon gangsters come after her.THE RUNAWAY BRIDE is a really, really awful movie that is so incredibly bad that you can't help but be caught up in how bad it is. If you're a fan of these early talkies then you already know that more times than not the director and cast members were more concerned about the voices getting recorded than anything else. That's certainly the case here because there's absolutely no style to mention and it's clear that director Donald Crisp was just filming scenes without putting too much logical sense into them. As you can tell from my plot description, the story is about as stupid as you can get and I only revealed half of it! The first ten minutes of this movie are downright insane as one illogical thing after another happens. For starters, why does Mary lie to the detective when he comes to the door? Why does she really need to run? What did she see in this guy to begin with? Why are the gangsters so stupid? There are so many logical issues with this movie that you can't help but think they weren't working off of a screenplay and if this was from an actual screenplay, you've gotta wonder what powder was going around RKO at the time. The story is so insane that it actually keeps you glued to the screen just so you can see how much worse it gets.Astor, as you'd expect, is good in her role but you somewhat see her struggling to make anything out of the character because she has nothing to work with. Hughes is good in his role as is Paul Hurst as the cop trying to figure everything out. Sadly, the actors just can't overcome this horrid screenplay and in the end THE RUNAWAY BRIDE really is one of the worst films from this period.

When Mary Astor flunked her talkie test (hard to believe but true) Fox, who had been paying her a top salary, didn't want to know her anymore. After a lean time being rejected for jobs she was picked up by Pathe/Radio where she was reunited with Lloyd Hughes for the distinctly underwhelming "The Runaway Bride". 1930 was a strange year for talkies with most of the studios (especially small ones like Pathe) still fine tuning and finding their way. For example a film from Tiffany - "Extravagance" (also with Lloyd Hughes) to me seemed to be a lot more "filmic" and interesting than this one. It just didn't seem to know what it wanted to be. The credits began with the jaunty song "Lovable and Sweet" so you thought - romantic comedy!! Even the initial scenes of Mary and Dick (Mary Astor and David Newell, an actor who got lost in the early thirties shuffle) driving off to marriage and happiness. But by the time they reach the motel Mary realises what a sap she has been - Dick is a spoiled rich kid who won't work and whose idea of economizing is ordering 8 suits instead of 12!! He then becomes a caveman and when she won't go through with the marriage, locks her in the apartment. Meanwhile the previous tenant, a jewel robber, has just pulled a job and breaks into his old apartment where a gunfight ensues. There are snatches of action but like all early talkies when people engage in conversation the action stops and everyone stands around hoping the hidden mike will pick up their conversation.The reason to keep watching is Natalie Moorehead. Mary Astor is completely first class but Moorehead just grabs your attention. Initially she plays a typical maid (in these pre-coders) whose IQ would be stretched if it went to double digits. She informs Mary of a job she has just secured as cook to a wealthy businessman, Mr. Blaine (Lloyd Hughes) and Mary gives her $300 to change identities. She wants to escape her husband-to-be and also the robbers and the police, who think she is mixed up in it. When Moorehead reappears it is in another guise completely. She is now a hard talking gun moll (that's more like the Natalie I know) who is after the pearls she thinks Mary has - of course she is planning to double cross everyone!!!Suddenly everyone turns up at Blaine's house for a showdown, Mary is kidnapped and Blaine is shot in the arm as he attempts to rescue Mary from the gang's clutches, who also have their hideout at the back of a local hospital. Dick just fades out of the movie.Mary Astor was clearly an asset to any movie, no matter how dire, and talkies revealed she had a beautiful clear voice. Her next movie was class all the way - she played Ann Harding's materialistic sister in "Holiday".

Wow...this is one of the strangest first half hours of any film I have ever seen. Believe it or not, the first 15 minutes of the film have just about NOTHING to do with where the film goes next--and in the process, it strains credibility WAAAY past the breaking point! The film begins with Mary Astor being driven by a fiancé who is an irresponsible thrill-seeker. Again and again, he nearly gets them killed by his reckless and super-high speed driving. Yet, despite this, she STILL plans on marrying the jerk--which irritated me quite a bit.Eventually, Mary starts to have doubts about following through with the marriage--but his driving (oddly) didn't seem to be the final straw. Here is where things get really, really contrived--and rather crazy!! The fiancé steps out of the room they rented and Mary somehow gets locked in the place. In the meantime, a detective stops by and demands to be let in--and she lies that she's not dressed when all she really needed to say was she couldn't get out of the room! And, by the way, did he stop by and why did she lie?! This made no sense--nor did it make sense when, out of the blue, a criminal climbs into the room between the time the detective knocks on the door and before he returns with a pass key!! What are the odds?!? And, in the process, the criminal shoots a cop who is chasing him!!! So, Mary is locked in a room, a detective stops by BEFORE there is a crime committed, a real crime is then committed and the criminal chooses this particular room for a hideout, the crook shoots and kills another cop before he is also shot dead, but before dying he hides the loot in Mary's bag!!!! If all this doesn't sound utterly ridiculous, it gets worse! After the detective leaves but before he returns with the pass key, the maid arrives and lets Mary out of the room. Now what would any SANE person do? Well, according to this film, you pay the maid a fortune (for 1930) and take a job the maid was going to take in another part of town--going undercover to avoid the cops even though you'd done NOTHING (other than appear in a bad film). All this mess involving the police occurred in only about eight minutes in the film!! The next portion of the film is like yet another film crammed into one very, very busy movie. Mary is now a cook and the bachelor for whom she is working is very taken by her--and it's PAINFULLY obvious that they will fall in love by the end of the film. Why couldn't they have just kept the first portion of the film with the irresponsible fiancé and this section where she becomes the cook for this swell guy? After all, the intervening portion is just too goofy and stupid...and really undoes the entire film. Overall, the impact is very poor--and a movie that isn't really worth your time unless you LIKE 3rd rate films with occasionally bad sound (which was not terribly uncommon for an early talking picture). It's a bad film for so many reasons...but rarely is it boring!!

Old films are always worth watching, if you want to be a student of films. It has a young Mary Astor, very beautiful indeed. Donald Crisp is the director. He was a much better actor. The performances are very wooden and stiff which is typical for early talkies. They were still learning how to say dialog. The emotions are overdone physically, because most of the actors came from the silent era where facial expressions and gestures had to replace dialog. Watch Mary Astor in one of her later silents and watch her early talkies. But watching these old films gives us a window into the past that we cannot get any other way.