Steineded
How sad is this?
Crwthod
A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.
FuzzyTagz
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
MartinHafer
Lally (Norma Shearer) is happy. However, her world is turned upside down when her father (Lewis Stone) leaves her mother and remarries. She is now completely sour about love. Unexpectedly, however, she later meets Jack (Robert Montgomery) and is smitten with him...only to learn that she is the son of her father's new wife!! Naturally, this sort of plot is practically impossible to believe and the viewer will need to force themselves to just watch it and suspend their sense of disbelief. If you do, you'll find it a very watchable film BUT also a very mushy and old fashioned one as well. The acting and script are a bit over the top...but the ending is pleasant and the film pretty good for 1929. Certainly not one of Shearer's or Montgomery's best but worth seeing if you are a fan.
Michael_Elliott
Their Own Desire (1929) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Early MGM talkie has Norma Shearer playing a woman who falls in love with a man (Robert Montgomery) not knowing that he's the son of the woman who stole her father (Lewis Stone) away from her mother. This is pretty good drama that manages to have some very good scenes but also some very bad scenes. It's really strange but everything in this movie is either very good or very bad and that's everything from the performances to the story to the direction. The story is an interesting one but everything to do with Shearers mother is poorly written. We're suppose to feel sorry for her mother but the way her role is written we actually start to hate her because she causes so much trouble for her daughter that we can't stand her. The ending also doesn't work because it's so over the top in a bad way but this is after a terrific scene where Shearer and Montgomery get caught in a storm. Shearers performance is also very hit and miss as at times she's very good but at other times she brings laughter, which certainly wasn't intended. Just take a look at the scene where her father admits that he's divorcing her mother. Shearer's acting here is so silly that I couldn't keep a straight face. Montgomery is also very over the top but it's a fun performance. Stone, once again, is hit and miss but for the most part he works fine. The sound quality of the Vitophone track is very good.
kidboots
Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery - a match made in beauty heaven (at the start of his career Montgomery would have complimented any actress).I just love the young Norma Shearer. She wasn't always long suffering and stately ("Marie Antoinette" and "The Women"). The young Norma was happy, madcap, witty with an infectious laugh and a very natural acting ability. She had great charm - something that you don't see much in today's actresses. Being married to MGM's boy wonder (Irving Thalberg) didn't do any harm but I truly believe her own ability would have made her a big star on her own.Norma plays Lally, a bright young girl who seems to have the perfect family. Then her father announces he is leaving her mother after 23 years of marriage for Mrs. Cheever - a woman Lally never liked . Lally's world is shattered.Her mother is inconsolable and Lally decides she is through with her father. On a holiday to Lake Michigan with her mother, she meets Jack (Robert Montgomery) and there is an instant attraction.With the haunting song "Blues in the Night" as a background, events take place. Belle Bennett, whose big success was the 1925 version of "Stella Dallas" and with some of the hammiest acting I have ever seen, plays Lally's mother.Lally then discovers that Jack's mother is the woman her father left her mother for. A bit of the movie is taken up with "shall we be together or shall we part". Norma's emotional acting is wonderful and gives the film a higher standard than the plot, with other less capable actors, would.Of course there is the happy ending but not before some exciting action sequences, involving a nasty storm and the phrase "missing - presumed drowned".
Kali Devi
I rate this movie highly not because it's all that great but because it's a fascinating piece of movie history. There are no seamless edits - the end of one take often doesn't match up with the beginning of the next. Scriptwise, more is implied than said. In one conversation, Norma Shearer is clearly about to say the word "mistress", but bites her lip and spits out the name of her father's paramour instead. Yet fifteen minutes later she's standing in a slip while brushing her hair, and her nipples are clearly outlined through the fabric. Shocking, I tell you! My favorite scene was the dance sequence, which features a wonderful, haunting piece of music called "Blue Is The Night" by Fred Fisher.Overall this movie was interesting as an exercise in contrast and comparison with modern films. There are better films from that era - there were probably better films made that week - but I didn't mind spending 65 minutes with these people. I was duly entertained.
