THE IMPATIENT MAIDEN

 

THE IMPATIENT MAIDEN, released in 1932 by Universal, is the next film James Whale directed after he made the 1931 FRANKENSTEIN. 

According to James Curtis' biography of Whale, Universal executive Carl Laemmle Jr. bought the rights to a salacious novel called THE IMPATIENT VIRGIN as an intended vehicle for Clara Bow. Laemmle hoped to make a lurid box-office hit with the material and the notorious actress. Numerous problems with the Hays office made Universal rename the property THE IMPATIENT MAIDEN and downplay the more extreme aspects of the story. James Whale wound up attached to the project, even though it appears he wasn't too enthusiastic about it. 

THE IMPATIENT MAIDEN deals with a young woman named Ruth Robbins (Mae Clarke), who works as a secretary to a successful divorce attorney. Due to the people she deals with coming into her boss' office every day, and the low-rent neighborhood she lives in, Ruth is cynical and suspicious about getting married. Ruth falls in love with a young doctor named Myron Brown (Lew Ayres). Myron doesn't want to get married because he's just starting out his medical career and he doesn't have a lot of money. Their refusal to totally commit to one another causes Ruth and Myron to draw apart. Ruth's boss (John Halliday) tries to set her up as his mistress, but she still loves Myron. The doctor becomes angry over Ruth's situation with her employer, but a medical emergency brings the couple together for good. 

THE IMPATIENT MAIDEN might have been better if it had been made according to its original intentions. It's not an example of Pre-Code naughtiness--the characters of Ruth and Myron are too decent for that. The script lays on its bad attitude over marriage with a trowel--nearly everyone Ruth and Myron deal with has a bad relationship. There's also a lot of weird humor in the story that one assumes was put in by Whale. Ruth has a ditzy friend and roommate named Betty (Una Merkle), while Myron has his own ditzy friend in the form of Clarence (Andy Devine), a male nurse. (Of course Betty and Clarence get together, and they have a smoother relationship than Ruth and Myron do.) At one point Clarence puts Betty into a new type of straitjacket he has invented, and she gets stuck and put into a psychopathic ward. While that's going on, Myron gives Ruth a fluoroscopy--a bizarre way for the two main male characters to romance the two female leads. 

Lew Ayres and Mae Clarke in THE IMPATIENT MAIDEN

James Curtis states that James Whale wasn't all that interested in THE IMPATIENT MAIDEN. One can understand why, especially after what Whale went through on the production of FRANKENSTEIN. Whale and cinematographer Arthur Edeson do try to give some life to the material visually with an opening sequence set at Los Angeles' Angel's Flight mini-railway, and a camera that occasionally sweeps thru rooms. The climatic operating sequence is filmed in almost a documentary-like matter (Whale had an actual doctor on set to guide the actors). There's no Frankenstein-like stylistics to this sequence, or dramatic editing or music, but because of this, the ending isn't as gripping as it should be. 

Mae Clarke is very good as Ruth. She's not a conniving golddigger, she's just a woman unsure of marriage and true love. Lew Ayres seems unsure of himself as Myron--the actor stated in interviews that he felt James Whale didn't like him, and wasn't interested in giving him any direction. Una Merkle and Andy Devine get the showiest roles (one can debate on whether that was a good or bad thing). Hattie McDaniel has a cameo as a woman Myron is treating--she and her husband beat each other up. (It's another example of the story's--or Whale's--attitude toward marriage.) 

I watched THE IMPATIENT MAIDEN on YouTube, and the print was in bad shape (the audio quality was mediocre as well). Kino Lorber has recently released early James Whale Universal pictures such as THE KISS BEFORE THE MIRROR and BY CANDLELIGHT on home video, so perhaps THE IMPATIENT MAIDEN will soon get a restoration as well. It's not prime James Whale, but any film by the director is worth watching, and it marks the very last time Whale and Mae Clarke worked together.