The Marrying Kind

Florence and Chet come before a judge to be divorced. The judge does not sign the papers straight away; he tells them to go back and tell the story of their marriage from the start. They begin. How they met, the first years, the shortage of money, the children, and then a day nobody talks about. Each of them remembers the same events differently. George Cukor directed the film from a screenplay by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin. Judy Holliday and Aldo Ray take the leads. It was sold as a comedy, but its middle is heavy; a family tragedy sits at the very centre of the telling. It puts nobody in the right: both mean well, both are worn out, and both make mistakes.