Perfect Understanding (1933)
* 1/2 (out of 4)
With her star quality fading, Gloria Swanson went to England to produce this melodrama, which when released would just harm her career even more as it failed with both fans and critics. Judy (Swanson) and Nicholas (Laurence Olivier) agree to get married with the "perfect understanding" that they never argue or disagree. All goes as planned until Nicholas takes a trip to Cannes where he falls for another woman. PERFECT UNDERSTANDING is the perfect example of legends doing an awful film. There's really no doubt about it but this thing is just deadly dull from the word go and it never picks up any steam. It's easy to see why the movie was such a disaster when it was originally released but the most confusing thing is why Swanson decided to produce this herself and in England. I mean, this type of melodrama was flowing from every small and major studio in America so going to England really didn't do anything to improve the film. Even worse is that we have so many boring dialogue scenes that just drag everything out that the viewer will be wanting to stick sharp knives in their eyes. Things don't get any better once Olivier does the cheating as we get some pretty boring situations leading to a finale, which is just downright awful. It seems the film wants to return to Swanson's glory silent days because the picture really does look and feel like a silent at times but it's done in such a way that the entire thing just seems old-fashioned and it just doesn't work with the dialogue. Swanson is good in her role but sadly she's not given too much to do. Olivier is excellent in his part but one wishes the great performance was going towards a better cause. PERFECT UNDERSTANDING had pretty much been forgotten for over seven decades until it was brought back up to the surface but sadly, only die-hard fans of the stars should even bother with it.