The Wedding Night
| The Wedding Night | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | King Vidor |
| Produced by | Samuel Goldwyn |
| Screenplay by | Edith Fitzgerald |
| Story by | Edwin H. Knopf |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Alfred Newman |
| Cinematography | Gregg Toland |
| Edited by | Stuart Heisler |
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Production
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| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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83 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $174,081 |
The Wedding Night is a 1935 American romantic drama film directed by King Vidor and starring Gary Cooper and Anna Sten. Written by Edith Fitzgerald and based on a story by Edwin H. Knopf, the film is about a financially strapped novelist who returns to his country home in Connecticut looking for inspiration for his next novel and becomes involved with a beautiful young Polish woman and her family. The film was produced by Samuel Goldwyn and filmed at Samuel Goldwyn Studios from early November to early December 1934. It was released in the United States on March 8, 1925.
The film received generally positive reviews, with The New York Times calling it "both pictorially and dramatically striking". Despite the reviews, the film did poorly at the box office, earning only $174,081. King Vidor won the Volpi Cup for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival in 1935. The Wedding Night was released in DVD format by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on May 22, 2007.
New York novelist Tony Barrett (Gary Cooper) and his wife Dora (Helen Vinson) have accumulated serious debts as a result of their fast and affluent lifestyle in the big city. When Tony approaches his publisher expecting an advance on his newest novel, he is told that success has gone to his head and the novel is unpublishable. With few options available, Tony and Dora move to his family's run-down farm in Connecticut, where they meet his neighbors: a Polish farmer, Jan Novak (Sig Ruman), and his beautiful daughter, Manya (Anna Sten). Looking to expand his own property, Mr. Novak offers Tony $5,000 for a field bordering the Novak farm, and the author eagerly accepts. With their finances replenished, Dora returns to New York, leaving Tony at the farm, where he intends to write a new novel inspired by the Novaks and their friends.
Sometime later, Tony and Manya are at his house discussing her betrothal to Fredrik (Ralph Bellamy), the young man chosen by her father to be her husband. A drunken Tony tells Manya that she is not in love with the young man, and makes suggestive remarks that anger her. The following day, Tony apologizes to Manya and the two begin a close friendship. After Tony's servant leaves to return to New York, Manya begins spending more time at Tony's farm and the two fall in love, just like the characters in his new novel, Stephen and Sonya. Fredrik soon learns that Manya has been seeing Tony at his farm, and he and her father forbid her from seeing Tony again. Ignoring their orders, Manya continues to spend time with the novelist at his house. One evening, a snow storm prevents Manya from returning home. The next morning, Mr. Novak angrily confronts Tony at his farm. Later, he demands that Manya marry Fredrik the following Monday. When Manya tells him that she will not spend her life being an unpaid servant like her mother, Novak slaps her.
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