Pre Code Hollywood Season: FD Cinematheque

The Marriage Playground (1929)

Director: Lothar Mendes

Cast: Mary Brian, Fredric March, Lilyan Tashman, Huntley Gordon, Kay Francis, William Austin, Seena Owen, Phillipe De Lacy, Anita Louise, Mitzi Green, Clive Brook (narrator)

70 min

The Marriage Playground is a 1929 American Pre-Code drama film directed by Lothar Mendes and written by Doris Anderson, J. Walter Ruben and Edith Wharton. The film stars Mary Brian, Fredric March, Lilyan Tashman, Huntley Gordon, Kay Francis, William Austin, and Seena Owen.

The film was released on December 21, 1929, by Paramount Pictures.^[1]^[2]

Plot

Joyce and Cliffe Wheater, a much-divorced American couple, leave their seven children to fend for themselves as they tour the smart resorts of Europe. Judith, the eldest, takes care of the group. Martin Boyne, an American tourist, meets Judith and the children at the Lido and remembers that he knew their father in America; attracted to Judith, he is quick to sympathize with the problems of the children.

Although he is the way to Switzerland to meet Rose Sellers, his fiancée, Martin delays the trip to help the children through a crisis that threatens to separate them. When he leaves, Judith despairs, feeling that he regards her as only a child, and she decides to take the children to Switzerland; there Martin realizes he loves her, and when Wheater, repenting of his neglect, telephones him to bring the children back, Martin declares that he is marrying Judith and will himself care for the children.