Let Us Be Gay (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A housewife divorces her self-centered husband. Years later, she attends a party where her ex is pursuing another woman. Unbeknownst to him, she is the same ex-wife he'd neglected, now transformed into a fashionable socialite.

Directed by Robert Z. Leonard. Stars Norma Shearer, Rod La Rocque, and Marie Dressler.

Let Us Be Gay is a 1930 romantic comedy starring Norma Shearer as a woman whose husband cheats on her, so she leaves him and decides to reinvent her life. Some time later, she is invited to stay with a rich older woman whose niece is in a relationship she doesn't approve of, so she asks Shearer to lure the man away, only for it to turn out that the man is Shearer's ex. This is the second film from this year in which the same actress plays a woman who starts living it up what she realizes that her husband has been doing the same, but this one has a lot less meaningful anything to say about it. My reaction to this can't be shared without spoiling the ending, so let me say that it sets it up as if Shearer is going to reject her ex's attempts to win her back and is going to maintain her own independence that he she has fought so hard for, only for her in the last 30 seconds to break down and say, no, she's so sad and lonely and she wants to get back together with her husband. He's made no attempts to change his behavior or attitude, he just thinks she's hotter now and wants to get back with her because of that. The other film with this plot, The Divorcee, was a little bit more thoughtful in how it approached this, but this one was just deeply disappointing. The mistaken identity plot throughout was also not particularly compelling. Definitely a middling film that then was dragged much further down due to its unsatisfactory ending. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Let Us Be Gay (1930)

📊 Ranked #3003/4028 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 26

lost to Swing Time (#2010 → #2013)

beat The Rookie (#3015 → #3027)

lost to The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (#2514 → #2220)

lost to Max Dugan Returns (#2764 → #2661)

lost to Grace of Monaco (#2889 → #2806)

beat The White Ribbon (#2952 → #2973)

beat Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (#2920 → #2956)

lost to Chinatown (#2904 → #2877)

beat A Mighty Wind (#2912 → #3005)

lost to On the Waterfront (#2908 → #2919)

lost to Kiki's Delivery Service (#2910 → #2887)

lost to The Divorcee (#2911 → #2847)