Finally, she finds a younger man (Gregory Gaye) who professes he will marry her, if only she divorces. Dodsworth agrees, and is obligated to loiter in town waiting for the divorce to go through. A chance meeting with friendly divorcee Mary Astor has him moving in with her.
Alas for Fran, Gaye backs out of marrying Fran once his elderly mother, Maria Ouspenskaya, forbids it. Fran attempts to reconcile with Dodsworth, but he finally realizes what a selfish, shallow, and petty person she has become, and dumps her to return to Astor.
Dodsworth began as a 1929 novel by noted author Sinclair Lewis. In 1933, it became a successful Broadway play, with Walter Huston as the lead. Sidney Howard, who would later write the screenplay for Gone With the Wind, adapted the play to the silver screen. Throw in director William Wyler, and a quality supporting cast, and you have the all the ingredients necessary for a great movie.
How others will see it. Dodsworth was a box office success and was critically praised. It was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor. Ouspenskaya was nominated for Best Supporting Actress despite having only one scene. It was her first film, aside from a few silent shorts made in her home country of Russia.
Today at imdb.com, Dodsworth has 8400 user votes, a respectable total for a black and white feature made 85 years ago. The user ratings are high, ranging from 7.7 among men under 30, to 8.2 among women over 45. Americans like the movie (8.0) moderately more than do non-Americans (7.6), perhaps finding stereotypes in the way that Europeans are portrayed. The user reviews are predominantly highly positive, but there is a minority who dislikes the characters, or believes it is like a soap opera with too much dialogue.
How I felt about it. The main character is not really Dodsworth, the quick-witted but long-suffering husband to an unfaithful, insufferable wife. The movie is actually about Fran, whose fear of growing old and missing out on romantic love causes her to make foolish decisions over and over again.
With the first appearance of Mary Astor, it is obvious that she is only there to give Dodsworth a Plan B that is actually a big improvement over Plan A, which has him as the cuckold to a loveless wife. Never in the film does Astor have any relationship to any character but Dodsworth, and it is as if she is doing nothing but passing time until Dodsworth decides to have her. Which, of course, he does.
Given the director, cast, and writers involved, the movie could hardly miss. Instead, it delivers. There are wonderful performances from Gaye, Ouspenskaya, and Huston. Astor, who was going through a divorce during the production, identified strongly with the role. Huston had played his character for two to three years.
There was apparently conflict between Chatterton and Wyler. She wanted to play her character strictly as a villain, while Wyler wanted to make her more sympathetic. Ultimately, it is a thankless role, and a difficult one to play. Fighting a director only made the task more challenging. As it is, one wonders what Dodsworth ever saw in Fran, except that when she was younger, she was undoubtedly attractive. Her family wealth may have come in handy, as well.