A Bill of Divorcement (1932)

A Bill of Divorcement is a 1932 American Pre-Code drama film, directed by George Cukor and starring John Barrymore and Katharine Hepburn in her screen debut. It is based on the British play of the same name, written by Clemence Dane as a reaction to a law passed in Britain in the early 1920s that allowed insanity as grounds for a woman divorcing her husband. It was the second adaptation of the play, having previously been made into a British silent film A Bill of Divorcement in 1922.

Synopsis

A Bill of Divorcement describes a day in the lives of a middle-aged Englishwoman named Margaret "Meg" Fairfield (Burke); her daughter Sydney (Hepburn); Sydney's fiancée Kit Humphreys (Manners); Meg's fiancée Gray Meredith (Cavanagh); and Meg's husband Hilary (Barrymore), who escapes after spending almost twenty years in a mental hospital. After the family discusses Hilary's genetic predisposition toward psychiatric problems, which Sydney seems to have inherited, Hilary and Sydney give up Meg and Kit in order to avoid passing this trait to future generations.

Actors