Dodsworth

Dodsworth (1936) is William Wyler's quietly devastating drama, now streaming online on iFILM. Sam Dodsworth has just sold the auto company he built and, for the first time in two decades, has nothing to do. He and his wife Fran board a liner for Europe — and the trip slowly reveals how far apart the two of them have drifted.

Sam (Walter Huston) is content with calm and small pleasures. Fran (Ruth Chatterton), terrified of aging, throws herself into the salons of Paris and Vienna, flirts with passing admirers, and finally asks for a divorce to marry a young baron. The film refuses to pick a villain; it simply watches a long marriage come apart while a decent man learns to live again. Mary Astor and a young David Niven round out the cast.

Adapted by Sidney Howard from the Sinclair Lewis novel, it keeps the book's grown-up, unsentimental tone instead of softening it for the screen. The picture took home the Oscar for art direction and competed for six more awards, Best Picture among them. A rare bit of studio-era Hollywood that treats divorce without moralizing. Watch Dodsworth (1936) online on iFILM.