In Dreams

We had already seen the first half of the Design for Living / Peter Ibbetson (1933) Gary Cooper double header, so I will concentrate on Ibbetson.

It starts in Paris, mid 1800's. A little English boy called Gogo lives next door to a little girl, Mimsey. They fight over boards to build a dog house or a carriage. They are always fighting, but are best friends. When Gogo's mother dies (his father already being dead), his uncle, Douglas Dumbrille comes to collect him. He takes him back to England, and renames him Peter Ibbetson.

In the second act, Peter has grown up to become Gary Cooper with a Vincent Price mustache. It's funny what this new look does for him. He looks like Melvyn Douglass with a chin. Anyway, he has become a successful young architect in the neo-Gothic mold, working for blind Donald Meek. He is restless, unhappy as an architect, wanting to quit and search for meaning and love. Meek convinces him to go on vacation in Paris.

He meets a cute cockney girl there - Ida Lupino! - and visits the places he and Mimsey lived in, now shuttered. He realizes then that the only thing he ever loved was a little girl, and she's now gone. When he gets back, Meek convinces him to do one more job, rebuilding the stables for a Duke John Halliday. 

But mostly he is arguing with the Duchess, Ann Harding. She demands that he simply repeat one wing of the stable on the opposite side, while he has a whole new design in mind. Although they argue, they find themselves drawn together. At one point, they are discussing a dream and realize that they both had the same one. 

But the Duke gets jealous and disparages Harding's honor. Although the pair has never touched, they declare their love for each other in from of him, and realize that they are Gogo and Mimsey, grown up. The Duke draws a pistol, and Cooper throws a chair at him, killing him. Although it's self-defense, he is sentenced to life in prison.

The last act has Cooper in prison, with Harding living in seclusion. He is not a good prisoner, and the guards break his back whipping him. One night he dreams of her, and she tells him they can be together in their dreams. She shows him her ring and tells him she'll send it to him in real life, so he'll know the dream is real. And so she does.

And so they live to old age, miserable in life, happy in dreams. Then, she dies...

This is all wildly romantic and melodramatic. It's known for the shared dream fantasy, but that doesn't really hit until the end. It isn't even very surreal. But the whole movie is suffused with a glowing internal light that black-and-white is so good for. Cooper's famed stiffness works well for this upright, honest, seeking man. Harding is his equal.

But not, I'd say, as much as Miriam Hopkins in Design for Living. We didn't watch the whole movie, because it was a school night, but I was amazed at how beautiful, sexy and seductive she was. Every time she kissed either Frederic March or Gary Cooper, she looked so ecstatic. And when she stretched out on the day bed... Wow!