Two Films by Thornton Freeman: Week-End Marriage; They Call it Sin

Thornton Freeman was a journeyman director who made four films in 1932, including Week-End Marriage and They Call It Sin, both recently shown in the Turner Classic Movies tribute to Loretta Young(she made six films in '32), who starred in both.  These films were both very much in the First National/Warner Brothers style of fast visions of modern life; each clocks in at about 65 minutes.

In They Call It Sin, Loretta Young runs away from the a stuffy small town in Kansas after traveling executive David Manners picks her up there.  When she arrives in New York she finds out that Manners is already engaged and he doesn't have the guts to give up his society dame.  So songwriter Young (Manners discovered her playing the organ in church) takes up with a show producer (played by the wonderfully sleazy Louis Calhern) who steals her songs and discards her, after which she marries George Brent, Manners's friend.

Week-End Marriage presents another point of view of the difficulty women have.  In this case Loretta Young marries Norman Foster, who resents that she makes more money than he does and drinks himself out of his job after his wife is transferred to St Louis.  He takes up with floozies and she takes up with George Brent, until Foster gets sick and she returns to him.

Both these films were made before the Production Code was enforced:  in Week-End Marriage the husband and wife even get to sleep together in a double bed and fool around in the morning!  They both also show how difficult it was for women in the Depression, with their choices even more limited than they are now.  There were points of view in both movies that women should stay home and take care of their husbands but these were more than canceled out by the glowing independence of Loretta Young, who was 19 when these films were made.

Though Freeman was a journeyman and only directed until about 1950 he shows a rare intelligence in these films.  Very much in the Warner Brothers style he gives distinctive personalities to each part, no matter how small, and he lets the audience draw its own conclusions, e.g., when Young returns to her husband and a woman is there taking care of him and the woman (beautifully played by Vivienne Osborne) smokes a cigarette and looks out the window while Young is with her husband it is quite clear the conflicting emotions she is feeling.  Freeland directs Loretta Young in an effectively minimal and restrained style, moving the camera slightly and letting the emotions show in her eyes.