The Warrior’s Husband. 1933. USA. Directed by Walter Lang. With Elissa Landi, David Manners, Ernest Truex. 75 min.
This forgotten curiosity was based on the 1932 Broadway comedy that earned Katharine Hepburn her ticket to Hollywood. In the film version, directed by Walter Lang, Hepburn’s role is taken over by Elissa Landi, who muscles up to play Antiope, the no-nonsense commander of the Amazon army. For political reasons, the Amazon queen (Marjorie Rambeau) forces Antiope to marry Sapiens, a mincing example of detoxified masculinity played by a limp-wristed Ernest Truex. After some rollicking gender-bending hijinks (some featuring Tiny Sanford as a flabby Hercules), the patriarchy reasserts itself when Antiope encounters the strappingly masculine leader of the Greek army—played by, um, David Manners. Dissertations to follow. 4K restoration from nitrate elements held by MoMA, funded by Twentieth Century Fox