Stubs - The Guardsman

The Guardsman (1931) Starring: Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Roland Young. Directed by Sidney Franklin Screenplay by Ernest Vajda Based on the play Testör by Ferenc Molnár (Budapest, 1911). Produced by Albert Lewin (Supervising Producer). Run time: 83 minutes. USA Black and White. Comedy, Drama.

Things don’t always work out as planned. That’s as true today as it was back in 1931, when Irving Thalberg wanted to add husband and wife Broadway actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne to the growing stable of MGM stars. To this end, he brought them out west to recreate their 1924 Broadway hit play The Guardsman on film.

The Guardsman went into production on June 25, 1931 and completed on July 23^rd. Made on a budget of $374,000, it was released on November 7, 1931.

The story opens with the end of opens with a stage re-enactment of the final scene of Maxwell Anderson's play Elizabeth the Queen, with Fontanne as Elizabeth and Lunt as the Earl of Essex. (Anderson, who had once been under contract at MGM, agreed to let Thalberg use the final moments of his play for the opening sequence of the film.) The Actor (Lunt) and The Actress (Fontainne), who are also married, exchange mild insults under their breath as they bask in the ovations of the crowd.

After the show, The Actor (Alfred Lunt) is surrounded by female fans.

Despite the fact that they’ve only been married for six months, the Actor's jabs soon give way to jealous accusations of unfaithfulness. Turns out he is her seventh husband and he figures she’s already looking for her eighth. The Actor tells his friend, the critic Bernhardt (Roland Young), that he believes that her playing Chopin on the piano is a sign that she has been unfaithful to him.

As a test, he sends her flowers from a secret admirer and waits for her reaction. He then tries to get her to admit that she’s having an affair. Knowing that his wife is fond of men in uniform, the Actor decides to disguise himself as a uniformed Russian guardsman and try to woo her in order to prove to himself that she can be easily seduced by such a man.

The Actor meets a stonewall when he asks his wife, The Actress (Lynn Fontanne),
about flowers she receives from a secret admirer. Backing her up are
 her assistant “Mama” (Maude Eburne) and her maid Liesl (Zazu Pitts)

The flowers are greeted with excitement and The Actress as well as her assistant “Mama” (Maude Eburne) and her maid Liesl (Zazu Pitts), who help her keep their origins a secret. Apparently, her secret admirer requests a rendezvous.

Roland Young plays Bernhardt, a critic, the Actor confides his plans to.

Bernhardt observes the Guardsman coming to the house and picking up the note the Actress tosses him accepting the invitation. Curious, Bernhardt follows the Guardsman through the streets to an apartment The Actor has rented as part of his ruse.

Later, back at their home, in order to induce his wife's secret rendezvous with the Russian prince, the Actor tells her that he has been called away to play in Hamlet and will return the following afternoon. That evening, after the Actor bids her farewell, the Actress immediately begins dressing to meet her paramour.

Disguised as the Guardsman, the Actor engages the Actress in a conversation about her husband. The Actress tells him that her husband is intelligent and handsome, and after she informs him that he has left her alone until the next day, she asks the Guardsman to stay.

Upset, the Actor begins to act in a brutish manner, until she calls out for her maid.

The Actor is overjoyed by her resistance and her assurance that she loves her husband, but before she sends him away, she tells him to meet her at the opera that night.

At the opera, the Guardsman joins the Actress in her box, but she berates him for embarrassing her.

Following the opera, the Actor escorts her home, where she kisses him, but tells him that she does not wish to see him again. He rejoices with Bernhardt, who has followed them, over his apparent victory in determining his wife's faithfulness, but his elation is soon ended when she throws down the keys to the house. Bernhardt picks up the keys and hands them to the Guardsman, who goes inside.

The next day, the Guardsman calls, but the Actress spurns him once again and tells him that her jealous husband will soon be home.

The Actor removes his disguise and returns home. While telling the Actress about his supposed trip, he pretends to be unpacking in the next room while reapplying his disguise.

When he re-emerges as the Russian guardsman, the Actor threatens his wife with a knife over her infidelity, but she laughs and tells him that she knew who he was from the first moment she saw him in his disguise.

The Actor’s own conceit convinces himself that he is such a good actor that no one could have seen through his disguise. However, a Creditor (Herman Bing), who has been to house before, comes to see him about the money he is owed and recognizes him right away.

A Creditor: Your own mother might not know you. Your own wife might not know you. And you might put on all the uniforms and all the whiskers and all the wigs in the world. But, as long as you owe me money, I would know you.

Deflated, the Actor is still not convinced until the wife explains that she knew it was him because of his kiss, his eyes and what we assume is how he makes love. The Actor is finally convinced of his wife’s fidelity when Bernhardt arrives on the scene. It is the Actress' meaningful nod and smile to Bernhardt, however, that betrays the truth.

The Guardsman was a success with film critics. Mordaunt Hall, of The New York Times, was effervescent in his praise of the film, writing “It is a pity that there are not more Fontannes, Lunts and Molnars to help out the screen, for then this medium of entertainment would be on a far higher plane.”

Lynn Fontanne received an Academy Awards nomination for her role as The Actress.

The film was a success with moviegoers and Lunt and Fontanne were both nominated as Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively, for the Academy Awards. However, despite their success, Lunt and Fontanne were unimpressed by the moviemaking process. Thalberg had to recast the next film he’d set up for them, Reunion in Vienna, to star John Barrymore and Diana Wynyard. Lunt and Fontaine turned down future Hollywood offers, with Fontanne reportedly telling one studio, "we can be bought, but we cannot be bored."

Alfred Lunt was born in Milwaukee on August 19, 1893 and began his acting career with a Boston stock company in 1912. Lunt had made his Broadway debut in 1917. His wife, Lynn Fontanne, was born in Essex, England on December 6, 1887. She began acting professionally in 1905, in London. As a member of a touring company, Fontanne came to America. They met while performing in the play Made of Money in 1919. They would work together again in another play called A Young Man's Fancy and, after that, went their separate ways professionally and appeared in roles that would make them stars: Lunt in Booth Tarkington's Clarence and Fontanne in George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly's Dulcy.

Even though they married in 1922, they continued to maintain separate careers. By the mid-1920s, they were the most respected and highly paid stage actors in the country. It was quite a surprise that they decided, in 1924, to join the Theatre Guild, which was dedicated to performing more avant-garde works and required Lunt and Fontanne to take fairly massive pay cuts. With the Theatre Guild, Lunt and Fontanne performed in plays such as Shaw's Arms and the Man and Pygmalion, as well as works by Robert Sherwood and Ibsen.

After 1928, the couple never appeared separately on stage and together, they ruled Broadway. Among their hits were several Noel Coward productions, like Private Lives and Design for Living. The couple were innovators in bringing naturalism to the American stage, a style we take for granted now with a more realistic tone, overlapping dialogue, actors turning their backs to the audience, etc. The actors are so famous that there is a theater in New York named in their honor, The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre (previously known as the Globe Theatre).

To watch The Guardsman is a rare chance to see these two famous actors working together on film. There really isn’t any other way to see them perform together. They would make a cameo together in Stage Door Canteen (1943), but did not perform. But seeing them act might not be enough. Their performances haven’t aged well. And some of the accolades may have been based on the reputations the actors brought with them.

Like the leads, the film is not without its charms, and the occasional laugh, but it plays as a sort of sketch that gets stretched out to feature length, like when a sketch on Saturday Night Live gets made into a film. What might have worked for ten minutes loses something as the runtime adds up.

There are occasionally some interesting filmic transitions, but for the most part, it feels like a filmed play. Its sense of sophistication hasn’t aged very well in the nearly 90 years since its first release. If you’ve wanted to see Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne act, then this is your only chance. Otherwise, The Guardsman might not be the movie for you.