Perfect Strangers (1945 film)

Plot

Robert and Cathy Wilson (Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr) are a timid married couple in 1940 London. He is a bookkeeper, she a bored housewife. However, their tedium-filled lives are drastically changed by the war. He enlists in the Royal Navy, while she (against his wishes) joins the Wrens. During the three years the couple are apart, they are transformed, each becoming much more self-confident.

Cathy's assertive new friend, Dizzy Clayton (Glynis Johns), helps her break out of her shell. She begins going out with Dizzy's cousin, naval architect Richard (Roland Culver), who falls in love with her. However, she remains faithful (if unenthusiastically) to her husband.

Meanwhile, Robert toughens up on sea duty and in time becomes a petty officer. His hands are badly burned when his ship is sunk, but he stoically rows in the lifeboat for five days without complaint. He recuperates in a hospital, tended by Elena (Ann Todd), a beautiful nurse. On the last night of his stay, he asks her out to dinner. He is attracted to her, but she informs him that she lost her beloved husband only six months earlier, kisses him, and leaves.

Robert and Cathy both receive ten-day leaves, but each dreads being reunited with the dowdy spouse each remembers and being forced back into the dreary life they shared.

Cathy cannot bring herself to return to her flat, where Robert is waiting. Instead, she phones Robert to meet her on more neutral ground. She tells him she will not be returning to him. He is relieved and readily agrees to a divorce, to her surprise. They then go to the neighbourhood pub, where each discovers the wholesale changes in the other. They find that they are "perfect strangers". Nonetheless, they are attracted to each other. Robert's friend 'Scotty', whom they meet at the pub, lets slip Robert's unflattering description of the 'old' Cathy to the new; she's insulted and it hardens her heart. They quarrel and again resolve to divorce. But later that night, the couple reconsider and reconcile.

Cast

Cast notes

Production

Perfect Strangers was the first of what was supposed to be a number of co-productions between Alexander Korda and M-G-M – including a version of War and Peace directed by Orson Welles and starring Korda's wife, Merle Oberon, as well as The Hardy Family in England – but no subsequent films came from the agreement, because Korda bristled at being bossed around by MGM's head of production, Louis B. Mayer.

The film was originally scheduled to have been directed by Wesley Ruggles, but producer Korda took over the reins after disagreements with him about the film's story.

The film did some location shooting in Scotland, but was primarily shot in London.

Reception

Perfect Strangers was a commercial success in both the UK and the US, where it was re-titled Vacation from Marriage. It was one of the biggest hits at the British box office in 1945.

Awards and honors

Clemence Dane won an Academy Award for Best Original Motion Picture Story for Perfect Strangers.