Riptide

""When a Woman Loves!""

Mar 30 1934 Passed 1h 32m
Drama, Romance

Mary is an impetuous romantic who marries British aristocrat Lord Philip Rexford on a whim. Their marriage is successful, though, and they grow closer over the years. Then, a trip to the Italian Riviera unexpectedly reunites Mary with her former beau, Tommie. After some vicious gossip makes Rexford distrust her, he begins work on a divorce. Mary must now choose between the man she has married and the man she once loved.

Plot

Park Avenue party-girl Mary (Norma Shearer) and staid English nobleman, Lord Phillip Rexford (Herbert Marshall) are married on a lark, they live happily in London. He must travel to America on business leaving her home alone. Lord Rexford's aunt invites Mary on a trip to the Riviera where she runs into an old flame, Tommie Treal (Robert Montgomery). Under the spell of the sea breezes and the Mediterranean moon (a semi-excuse for adultery to keep Queen Norma's image clean, as this was a post-Production Code film), Mary is the "innocent" victim of a romantic escapade that makes headlines as well as the scandal sheets. None of Mary's explanations can soothe Lord Phillip, his cold indifference drives Mary, who fights against it (a minor and feeble struggle at best), closer to Tommie. As the two lovers surrender to their ardor, Lord R. learns from his lawyer that Mary had been telling the truth, and he calls for her to join him in Cannes with a clean slate. O.K, but as Chief White Eagle told John Wayne in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), "too late, Nathan, toooooo late."

Written by

Edmund Goulding, Zoe Akins, Edith Fitzgerald

Directed by

Edmund Goulding

Production Countries

United States of America

Production Companies

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Languages

English

Awards

N/A

Scores
# of Votes
727
Average Rating
6.3 out of 10
Metascore
NA
Popularity
NA