Forbidden Heaven (1935) review: Dusty, naive, and oddly sweet

Honestly, if you have seventy minutes to spare and love dusty, well-meaning melodramas from the 1930s, Forbidden Heaven is worth a look. Cozy movie fans will love the makeshift family vibes, but anyone looking for actual gritty realism or logical characters will probably want to throw their shoe at the screen. 😅

It starts with Charles Farrell saving Charlotte Henry from jumping into a lake in London's Hyde Park. Instead of calling the cops or, you know, getting her actual medical help, he just decides to move into the park with her and her homeless buddies.

This movie is very much a product of its time. The logic here is basically: "Hey, are you poor and starving during the Great Depression? Just try harder!"

It is incredibly naive. But Farrell has this giant, goofy puppy-dog energy that makes it hard to get actually mad at him.

He was much better in the classic 7th Heaven, but here he is still doing that same charming, slightly dim-witted nice guy act. Charlotte Henry spends almost the entire movie looking like she is about to burst into tears, her eyes are permanently watery.

There is this one scene where they are all sharing a tiny bit of food in a makeshift shack. The way the camera lingers on a pot of soup is actually more emotional than any of the dialogue.

It gets a bit draggy in the middle when they start talking about the logistics of getting jobs. I kind of drifted off during a long speech about self-respect and stared at the background instead.

A few things I wrote down while watching:

• The accent work is... all over the place. Some people sound like they are from London, others sound like they just hopped off a bus in Ohio.
• The park sets look incredibly fake. You can almost see the studio walls in the background.
• Beryl Mercer is great as the grumpy but golden-hearted older lady. She basically steals every scene she is in.

It is not a masterpiece by any means. But as a weird little time capsule of how Hollywood thought the Depression could be solved with a smile, it is kind of charming.