Grounds for Marriage (1951)

Perfect cast and a good story

hyped garbage

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

"Grounds for Marriage" is watchable but I also found the plot to be silly and just hate the sort of singing that Kathryn Grayson did in this film. If you like very operatic music, perhaps you won't mind it like I did.When the film begins, you learn that Linc (Van Johnson) and Ina (Grayson) have been divorced for a few years and Linc is now planning on remarrying. Inexplicably, Ina wants Linc back--though exactly why is never really explored. In fact, it seems as if she wanted the divorce in order to follow her dream career--and now she is scheming to get him back despite him upcoming marriage to another lady.In order to get Linc's attention, she pretends to have a throat disorder and they call for a doctor--and Linc just happens to be that doctor. Now any sane doctor would have refused the case and referred her on to another--especially since she announced that she's trying to rekindle their dead marriage. But he doesn't--and eventually you know exactly how it's all going to end.Aside from the singing, the worst part about the film was Grayson's character. At times she was shrill and late in the film when Linc wants her back(???), she runs off in a huff--and this makes zero sense in light of her working so hard to get him. Overall, she comes off as petulant and childish and you have no idea why Linc would want her. At the very best, this is a silly time-waster--a film to watch when you don't want anything intellectually taxing.

In Grounds For Marriage the burning question of whether opera and operations form the basis of a successful marriage. When they were married Van Johnson didn't think so, but Kathryn Grayson is willing to give it another try.The plot of The Barkleys Of Broadway is shifted over to the grand opera as opera star Grayson tries to win back Dr. Johnson. Not so easy because Johnson is now engaged to Paula Raymond who happens to be the daughter of his boss Lewis Stone. Another complication is that Johnson's older brother Barry Sullivan, a toy manufacturer and a lady's man always has had a thing for Grayson and now that she's free....?The opera sequences are performed nicely and Reginald Owen is in the cast giving a great performance as the Metropolitan Opera Empresario, a caricature of the real life Rudolf Bing.A real fixture of the Metropolitan Opera was also in the cast. Milton Cross whom I well remember as a lad who hosted the Met broadcasts on radio narrates a dream sequence of Carmen as the film plot is played against the background of Carmen. Grayson of course sings for herself, but the rest of the cast is dubbed in these exaggerated operatic voices. The whole thing is quite hilarious.Grounds For Marriage is not one of Kathryn Grayson's more well known films, but she acquits herself in the comedy demanded of the part. Van Johnson is as good as he always is in these parts and he has his best moments giving a lecture to Paula Raymond's women's club about the common cold as a real cold overtakes him gradually.After 59 years Grounds For Marriage holds up well, but with no sopranos on the screen today, I doubt if the film will ever be remade, so catch this version.

While KATHRYN GRAYSON doesn't get a chance to shine here (she's left voiceless for too much of the film), at least VAN JOHNSON and BARRY SULLIVAN prove so adept at comedy that it's a shame they never had more frequent chances to prove how good they were at mugging.Sullivan, with his trim mustache and eyebrow-raised reactions, is clearly having a good time as an eccentric toymaker with designs on Grayson and PAULA RAYMOND--and anyone else who tickles his fancy.Van Johnson has a fine time as a doctor who is part of an all-doctor orchestra and trying not to renew his relationship with ex-wife Grayson. Unfortunately, the script makes Grayson's character rather unbearable, relieved only by some operatic warbling that scarcely gives the audience time to appreciate her musical talent. Ironically, the studio could have chosen much more effective operatic arias for her to sing, given that she's supposed to be an operatic diva who has just finished a world tour. Instead, we get very brief segments from "La Boheme" and "Carmen" that are over much too soon.Funniest bit has Van Johnson stifling a cold while making a speech about his theories on cold symptoms and later getting sympathetic treatment from Grayson while he wheezes and coughs his way into a spasm of epic proportions. He's hilariously effective.Summing up: Too bad the script isn't bright enough to accommodate all of these expert performers. A very uneven comedy that gets a lift from Johnson and Sullivan.

We know from Hollywood that divorced couples must be reconciled, and any attempt for one partner to marry someone else is doomed.Yet here, three years after his divorce, Van Johnson announces that he's grown, and fallen in love with an adult woman. Kathryn Grayson is a willful, turbulent child, an opera singer who psychosomatically loses her voice when her ex- refuses to resume their disastrous marriage. She tells him "you were born to be dominated," and ultimately infantilizes him into renouncing his new engagement and returning to their sick, sick, sick relationship.The entertaining parts of this film are indeed entertaining, if not memorable. But the parts of this film dealing with medicine, psychology, motivations and relationships are a distasteful mess, shot in Stygian darkness by a cinematographer with a half dozen of the world's greatest film noirs under his belt.When you wind up rooting for the cold society babe over the eccentric artist heroine, you have a film with a problem. Yuk.