I Want a Divorce (1940)

Synopsis
Ironically, the marriage between Dick Powell and Joan Blondell was beginning to fall apart at the time they co-starred in Paramount's I Want a Divorce. The film manages to sustain two plotlines, with newlyweds Alan and Geraldine MacNally (Powell and Blondell) beginning to have second thoughts about their union, while David and Wanda Holland (Conrad Nagel and Gloria Dickson) are in the last stages of their divorce proceedings. It so happens that Alan is the struggling attorney handling the Holland case, much to his wife's chagrin. As the hearings proceed, Alan and Geraldine drift further and further apart, only to abruptly reunite when Wanda Holland's suicide after losing custody of her son forces Alan to rethink his own priorities. Often written off as a mere comedy, I Want a Divorce has a surprising amount of meat on its bones. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide