The Bride Wore Boots

{{Infobox film

| name = The Bride Wore Boots

| image = Thebrideworeboots.jpg

| caption = Lobby card

| director = Irving Pichel

| producer = Seton Miller

| based_on = play by Harry Segall

|writer = Dwight Michael Wiley

| narrator =

| starring = Barbara Stanwyck
Robert Cummings
Diana Lynn

| music = Friedrich Hollaender

| cinematography = Stuart Thompson

| editing = Ellsworth Hoagland

| studio = Paramount Pictures

| distributor = Paramount Pictures

| released = {{Film date|1946|05|08}}

| runtime = 85 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

| budget =

}}

The Bride Wore Boots is a 1946 American romantic comedy film with Barbara Stanwyck in the title role, playing opposite Robert Cummings. A very young Natalie Wood is seen in the film, directed by Irving Pichel.Bride Wore Boots, The

Monthly Film Bulletin; London Vol. 13, Iss. 145, (Jan 1, 1946): 62.

This was Stanwyck's last feature comedy. Some years later, she complained to columnist Hedda Hopper, "I've always got my eye out for a good comedy. Remember Ball of Fire and The Lady Eve? But they don't seem to write that kind of comedy anymore -- just a series of gags."[https://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/99407 The Two Mrs. Carrolls]

Plot

Sally Warren runs a horse farm, but her husband Jeff has a dislike and fear of horses. He is a Civil War historian and lecturer, which bores Sally but is very popular with local ladies who call themselves the Mason-Dixon Dames.

As a Christmas gift, Jeff intends to please his wife by buying her a horse called Albert, but her horse trainer Lance Gale, an old beau, insults Jeff about the kind of horse he picked. Sally in turn buys Jeff a desk that belonged to Jefferson Davis, but the Dames claim it's a fake and one of them, Mary Lou Medford, makes a pass at Jeff.

The next time Sally catches the same woman kissing Jeff, she sues him for divorce. Jeff ends up hiring Mary Lou as his secretary. To spite his wife, Jeff also enters Albert in the big Virginia Cup steeplechase race that Sally's always longed to win.

Albert's jockey is thrown, so Jeff reluctantly leaps into the saddle. He is thrown off repeatedly while trying in vain to catch Lance's horse in the race. But his effort impresses Sally, who reconciles with Jeff at the finish.

Cast

Barbara Stanwyck as Sally Warren
Robert Cummings as Jeff Warren
Diana Lynn as Mary Lou Medford
Patric Knowles as Lance Gale
Robert Benchley as Uncle Tod
Natalie Wood as Carol Warren

Production

In May 1945 Paramount announced they would make the film with Stanwyck, Cummings and Knowles.{{cite news |title=Cummings and Stanwyck a New Paramount Team |newspaper=The New York Times |date=28 May 1945 |page=22}}{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/movie-star-cold-streaks-robert-cummings/|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|title=Movie Star Cold Streaks: Robert Cummings|date=29 October 2024|access-date=29 October 2024}}

In June 1945 Cummings announced he would follow this film with Dishonorable Discharge from a story by John Farrow for Paramount.{{cite news |title=Teresa Wright Will Star in 'Bishop's Wife' |newspaper=The New York Times |date=1 June 1945 |page=20}}

Reception

The New York Times wrote "The frivolous discords and disunions of elegant husbands and wives have so often been the subject matter of farces upon the screen that regular movie-goers must be pretty well numb to them by now. And that’s a help, for a state of anesthesia is the best one in which to partake of Paramount's latest in this genre, The Bride Wore Boots."{{cite news|newspaper=The New York Times|date=6 June 1946|title=The Screen|page=16|first=Bosley|last=Crowther}}

Variety called it "never as funnyas its makers intended."{{cite magazine|title=The Bride Wore Boots|magazine=Variety|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_variety_1946-03-20_162_2/page/8/mode/1up?|date=20 March 1946|page=8}}

Stanwyck's biographer called it "Barbara’s first outright boxoffice bomb since the mid-1930s."{{cite book|first=Axel|last=Madsen|url=https://archive.org/details/bwb_P8-BNP-008/page/260/mode/1up?|title=Stanwyck, a Biography|page=260|date=1995}}

References

External links

{{IMDb title|id=0038383|title=The Bride Wore Boots}}
[https://letterboxd.com/film/the-bride-wore-boots/ The Bride Wore Boots] at Letterbox DVD
[https://web.archive.org/web/20171103095833/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6a666ef6 The Bride Wore Boots] at BFI

Category:1946 films

Category:1946 romantic comedy films

Category:American romantic comedy films

Category:American black-and-white films

Category:Films directed by Irving Pichel

Category:Films scored by Friedrich Hollaender

Category:Films set in Richmond, Virginia

Category:Films set in Virginia

Category:American horse racing films

Category:Paramount Pictures films

Category:1940s English-language films

Category:1940s American films