Just the other night, I happened to watch The Man I Married, which was made in 1940 but set in 1938, prior to the outbreak of World War II.  In that movie, Carol Hoffman (Joan Bennett) is married to a German immigrant, Eric (Francis Lederer), who wants her and their son Ricky to go on a vacation back to Germany with him to visit his father.  She is enthusiastic about being able to see all the sights.

Carol’s obstetrician is a Jew.  He asks Carol and Eric for help in getting his brother released from Dachau by bribing the guards.  Eric says he will be glad to do so.  Carol refers to Eric as being “sweet and gentle.”

Shortly after they arrive in Berlin, Eric begins to fall under the sway of German culture, and it is not long before he joins the Nazi party, deciding to stay in Germany permanently.  He even falls in love with Frieda, who is also a Nazi, whom he wants to marry, and for which reason he wants a divorce from Carol. Carol is disgusted with him and the whole Third Reich, and so she agrees.  But then she finds out that Eric will not allow her to take their son Ricky back with her to America, because he wants Ricky to become a Nazi too.

With the help of an American reporter, Kenneth Delane (Lloyd Nolan), she tries to sneak Ricky out of the country, but Eric stops her.  Eric’s father (Otto Kruger) is on Carol’s side, and he tells Eric that unless he lets her take Ricky back to America, he will reveal to the Nazis that his mother was a “Jewess.”  Frieda is there when this is revealed, and she is repelled by the thought that she has been having sex with a man who has Jewish blood.  Eric is crushed.  Carol takes Ricky and leaves without any resistance.

Most people have not seen this little-known movie, so I suppose it’s not surprising that Betty Mahmoody was unlikely to have seen it either, or else she might have refused to go to Iran with her husband and daughter to visit his family in 1984, just five years after the Iranian Revolution.  Her story was made into the movie Not Without My Daughter (1991).

As Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando) says in Guys and Dolls (1955), “No matter who you get married to, you wake up married to somebody else.”  There have been a lot of movies exemplifying that principle, but these two movies have an additional feature setting them apart from the rest, showing the extent to which society shapes the individual, culture determines the personality.  In particular, in both movies an American woman marries an immigrant.  While in America, the man’s self has been substantially influenced by American culture.  But when he and his wife and child return to his native land, ostensibly just for a short visit, he quickly falls under its influence.

One might suppose that no culture could be any more threatening than that of Nazi Germany. And yet, even under the Third Reich, Germany was still part of Western civilization.  Moreover, as much as it may pain some people to admit it, the Nazis were Christians.  Carol has it relatively easy moving about, with no one trying to force her to change the way she dresses or behaves.  Moreover, Eric never beats her.  As she is played by Joan Bennett, Carol has that skeptical look on her face that is part of Bennett’s screen persona. Delane cautions her not to show her disdain for Nazis while they are mistreating some Jews, but he is unsuccessful in that regard.  We cannot imagine Carol in Iran, a country in the Middle East, where Islam rules.  She wouldn’t last a week.

Not Without My Daughter begins in Alpena, Michigan, where Betty (Sally Field), her husband “Moody” Mahmoody (Alfred Molina), and their daughter Mahtob, who is four years old, are enjoying their home in the country, where we see lots of trees and a wide, gently flowing river.  It’s all so peaceful and serene, America the beautiful.  How could they not be one big happy family in a setting like that?

Betty’s parents are visiting them, and her father asks Mahtob what she wants to be when she grows up. She says, “A nurse.”  Moody points out that she can be a doctor, implying that she need not settle for the traditional role for women in the medical field.  He has clearly embraced the American ideal of equality, extending even to the sexes.

In the next scene, we see that Moody himself is a doctor, working in a hospital. While sitting in the recreation room, reading an Iranian newspaper, he overhears other doctors talking while shooting a game of pool.  They make snide remarks about Iran, not even caring that Moody can hear what they are saying. One doctor says, “The Iranians have prayed themselves back to the Stone Age.”  We know that doesn’t apply to Moody, however, because in the very next scene we see him sitting outside his house listening to a recording of Puccini’s opera Tosca.  Betty notices he seems to be depressed, and he tells her about what the doctors were saying.  She gets upset, but he is magnanimous, telling her to forget it, saying, “There are dumb people everywhere.”  Later, when he reads Mahtob a bedtime story about Aladdin, he mentions that the story is from Persia, now called Iran.  Mahtob says a friend of hers said that she, Mahtob, must hate Americans because her father is from Iran.  Moody tells her that he has lived in America for twenty years and is as American as apple pie.  We believe him when he says this.  More importantly, he believes it too.

In the next scene, Moody is on the phone with his sister, who is putting pressure on him to come to Iran. When he suggests that to Betty, she says that it’s too dangerous, recalling the hostage crisis and all that has been going on over there since.  They argue about it.  Finally, he takes the ultimate step. He picks up the Koran and makes this vow:  “I swear to you, on the sacred Koran, that you won’t be in any danger, that we’ll be back after two weeks, and that I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize yours or Mahtob’s safety.”

With that assurance, she reluctantly agrees, and the next we see, they are arriving at the airport in Tehran. I don’t know about Betty, but I’m terrified already, just seeing them being greeted by Moody’s family, a whole mob of them, the ululating women dressed in chadors, covered in black cloth from head to toe, concealing everything except their hands and faces.  Everyone in Moody’s family is emotional, excessively so, to the point that it feels possessive.

Betty is already wearing a headscarf, but that does not suffice.  Moody’s sister presents Betty with what Moody is pleased to call a present but is an outfit for covering her head and body, and he insists that she put it on immediately.  He had told her that, as a foreigner, she wouldn’t have to dress like that, but admits he was mistaken.  She asks what would happen if she didn’t wear it, and he relays the question to his sister in Farsi.  His sister becomes furious, her face filled with anger while gesturing violently.  Moody translates, saying she must wear it or be arrested.

As they drive through Tehran, things are quite different from the serenity of their home back in Michigan. In addition to the hustle and bustle one would expect in any big city, we see the looming face of the Ayatollah Khomeini on huge posters while the call to prayer is blasting over the loudspeakers.

Then we see Moody’s brother Mammal talking to Moody about something in Farsi, his face filled with anger and gesturing emphatically.  This argument is interrupted when a woman wearing a chador gets out of an automobile with an assault rifle and starts running right at Betty.  The driver of the car, also with an assault rifle, does the same.  They are the police.  Moody tells Betty to cover her hair completely.  After they leave, Mammal, with that same angry face, angry voice, and angry gestures, tells her, “Every hair that is not covered is like a dagger aimed at the heart of our martyrs.”

That earlier remark by one of the doctors about Iran going back to the Stone Age comes back to haunt Moody.  He admits that his family are “basically country people.”  Later, when Moody is awakened as he is every morning for prayer, Betty asks him not to go.  Now he is the one to become angry, saying his family are the direct descendants of Mohammed.  Then with bitter sarcasm, he says to her, “Of course, to a sophisticated American that must seem primitive.”

After another scene in which three men in Moody’s family are yelling at him and gesturing, Moody tells Betty that he didn’t want to tell her this before, but he was fired from his job at the hospital. Betty says, “I can’t believe it,” meaning only that she never thought something like that could happen. But we literally don’t believe it.  She talks about going back to find out what happened, saying they can appeal. “It’s America,” she says, “We’ve got laws.” He says nothing.

Later, he tells her for certain that they are not going back to America.  Now it’s Betty’s turn to become angry, saying he was planning this all along. “You lied to me,” she says.  “You held the Koran and swore nothing was going to happen.”

Was he lying to her when he swore on the Koran?  Later, when she tells his family what he did, he says that he swore on the Koran because she wouldn’t have come otherwise. And yet, as this movie is presented to us, I think he was sincere at the time.  He was as American as he thought he was, but now he is too ashamed to admit in front of his family that he honestly meant what he said when he made her that promise, for that would be a sign of weakness on his part.  Better to say that he lied to her when he swore on the Koran and affirm his dominance over her.

Betty asks, “How can you consider raising Mahtob here with how they treat women?”  As if to show her just how they do treat women in Iran, Moody hits her in the face, knocking her down.  Then holding a fist in her face, he says, “You’re in my country now.  You’re my wife.  You do as I say.”

Except for her daughter, who sweetly says she’ll help her, Betty is on her own. Every night they say a prayer together, asking the Lord to keep them together and help them return to America.  Hopefully, the real God is not Allah, or they’re going to be in trouble.  Anyway, one day, against the rules, Betty answers the phone, and it’s her mother, who tells her to go to the American Interests section of the Swiss Embassy.  She and Mahtob make it to the Swiss Embassy, but she is told there is not much they can do. After all, it was the American CIA, not the Swiss government, that put the Shah of Iran on the Peacock Throne in the early 1950s in exchange for cheaper oil prices, so why should the Swiss get involved and risk their own hostage crisis?

When she and Mahtob get back home, Moody starts viciously beating Betty, telling her the next time she disobeys him he will kill her.  At this point, Betty realizes it’s time for the long con.  She uses her womanly wiles to talk Moody into moving out of his sister’s house and in with his brother Mammal and his wife Nasserine, the only member of his family that ever shows her a friendly face.

One day Moody tells Betty that she must wear a chador because his uncle, who is a mullah, is coming to dinner.  While they are eating, the uncle turns to Betty and asks, “Why you wear chador?” Betty replies that she thought she had too.  Moody says nothing.  The uncle continues, saying, “It is not necessary to wear it inside.  It is exaggerated with some people now.”

The poor thing.  On her first day in Iran, the police pointed assault rifles at her, with Mammal telling her that every hair on her head was like a knife stab in the heart of the martyrs, and this evening she is belittled for overdoing it, almost as if the mullah is saying, “What are you, some kind of religious nut?”

One problem Betty has that Carol never had in The Man I Married is recognizing cultural cues.  Carol never had any trouble knowing whom she could trust and whom she could not.  But in Iran, Betty often misreads the intentions of others, so that someone she thinks will help her betrays her, while someone she thinks will betray her turns out to be on her side.

Eventually, she is befriended by sympathetic Iranians, who don’t like the way things are. They start making plans for her escape.  In the meantime, Moody keeps beating Betty mercilessly, locking her up, suspicious of her every move. It appears the long con will take a little longer.  But not too much longer.  The Iranian that is arranging for her escape tells her that people like those in Moody’s family believe a girl is ready for marriage at the age of nine.  “Child brides,” he tells her, “are not unknown.” Mahtob was four years old when the movie began, and we have seen Moody’s family having a birthday party for her, having reached the age of six.

Betty finally gets a chance and makes a break for it.  She and Mahtob will have to go across the Zagros Mountains, guided by some Kurdish tribesmen, who, she is told, are mostly friendly.  One tribesman, an old man, tries to get really friendly, making a move on Betty while she is asleep, but Mahtob wakes her up.  Previously, a young tribesman grabbed Betty’s bag and emptied it out, taking her passport, small purse, watch, and wedding ring as Betty pleaded with him not to.  We worry he is going to sell them and abandon her. He is the one who runs the old tribesman off for molesting her. But then suspecting betrayal, he knows he must get Betty and Mahtob out of there immediately.

At one point along the way, he gets a horse for Betty and Mahtob to ride on as he leads them across the mountains.  On the other side, there is a car waiting for them.  He hands Betty a package containing the valuables he took from her for safekeeping.  He mounts the horse and waves to her, then turns and rides away, cutting a figure every bit as noble and heroic as any Scheherazade might have told of in One Thousand and One Nights.

Eventually, they get to Turkey.  A bus lets them off on a street that looks run down and deserted. But then she sees the Stars and Stripes waving in front of the American Embassy.  She says to Mahtob, “We’re home, baby.”

That is as happy an ending as we could have wanted.  But I couldn’t help imagining an epilogue, where the screen says, “One year later,” followed by another scene in the recreation room of the hospital where the two doctors are shooting another game of pool.  One of them says, “Remember that guy Mahmoody who used to work here?  I ran into his mother-in-law at the grocery store yesterday, and she was telling me about all the horrible things he did to his wife and daughter.”

“Yeah,” the other one replies.  “I heard about that.  Nine ball in the side pocket.”