Ever Since Eve (1934) review - A silly, fast-paced relic of early Hollywood marriage panic

If you have about an hour to spare and love dusty, weirdly fast 1930s comedies, Ever Since Eve is a fun little relic to dig up. But if you hate movies where a marriage falls apart over a tiny misunderstanding that could be solved with a simple five-second chat, you will absolutely hate this.

It is just one of those films that exists because people in movies never just talk to each other.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Ever Since Eve (1934) through its definitive frames.

The setup is pretty wild. George O'Brien plays this rich, good-looking country guy who was raised by two grumpy old men who hate women.

One of them is played by Russell Simpson, who is always great at looking like he just swallowed a lemon. They basically teach him that women are evil, but then he goes to New York and immediately falls head over heels for Mary Brian.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Ever Since Eve (1934) through its definitive frames.

I mean, immediately. They get married so fast it makes your head spin.

This film reminds me a bit of the frantic marital chaos in Who's My Wife?, where everything goes wrong because nobody wants to explain themselves. Here, O'Brien's character suddenly decides his new bride is only after his money.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Ever Since Eve (1934) through its definitive frames.

He just packs up and leaves! It is incredibly frustrating because she actually loves him, and he’s just being a giant baby about the whole thing.

Things that made me chuckle (and some that didn't)

• George O'Brien’s facial expressions when he’s trying to look "deep in thought." It looks more like he's trying to remember if he left the stove on.
• The "timely accident" near the end is so incredibly convenient. It’s like the writers realized they only had ten minutes of film left and needed a quick fix.
• Herbert Mundin is in this! He always brings a weird, nervous energy that I love. He basically steals every scene he is in, even when he’s just standing in the background.

The whole thing is very thin. It is the kind of movie where you can tell they were just churning these out on an assembly line.

But there is a certain charm to how cheap and fast it feels. It doesn't try to be some grand statement on love. It just wants to get you to the happy ending and get you out of the theater.

Is it a masterpiece? Absolutely not. But if you like old Hollywood fluff with some fun character actors, you could do a lot worse on a lazy Sunday afternoon.