If I Were Free

Sarah Casanove can only watch as her callous husband leaves her for another woman. Crushed and humiliated, she finds a friend in English barrister Gordon Evers, himself mired in a hopeless marriage. Their friendship turns into something deeper -- but Gordon's wife, eager to hold on to a financially successful husband, will not free him. Have the lovers only traded one kind of despair for another?

Radiant Irene Dunne and suave, sardonic Clive Brook make a cosmopolitan pair of star-crossed lovers in the poignantly titled If I Were Free, based on John Van Druten's (I Remember Mama) stage play Behold We Live.

The melodrama IF I WERE FREE was adapted from the play Behold, We Live by John Van Druten. War veteran lawyer Gordon Evers (Clive Brook) is trapped in a loveless marriage to Catherine (Lorraine MacLean). Sarah Cazenove (Irene Dunne) is trapped in a loveless marriage to Tono (Nils Asther). The couple meet each other in Paris and fall in love. Tono runs off with another woman and Sarah returns to her antiques shop in London. The lovers want to marry, but Catherine won't give Gordon a divorce and Tono shows up unexpectedly at Sarah's shop. After a scare from the doctor about Gordon's health, the couple is united with the help of Gordon's mother (Laura Hope Crews) and their friends, Hector (Henry Stephenson) and Jewel Stribling (Vivian Tobin).