Although Barbara Stanwyck delivers a fine performance in No Man Of Her Own, a rather convenient and cheesy ending mars this film from becoming a real classic for her.
Unlike so many of her films where she is a role model for feminism Stanwyck in No Man Of Her Own is a troubled and weak woman who has been made pregnant and dumped by her two timing no good rat of a boyfriend Lyle Bettger. He gives her a one way ticket to the West Coast as a farewell.
Despondent Stanwyck takes the train and is befriended by a young married couple Richard Denning and Phyllis Thaxter who is also pregnant. Both are killed in a train wreck and Stanwyck badly injured. Her baby is delivered by Caesarian section and Stanwyck decides that she would take Thaxter's identity and go to Denning's home town which is where they were heading and where no one had met Thaxter before.
It works even though Denning's brother John Lund is suspicious. He likes Barbara Stanwyck well enough though. His parents Henry O'Neill and Jane Cowl are accepting and of her and their 'grandson'.
Into this idyllic life comes Bettger looking for a little blackmail. At Paramount in the early Fifties Lyle Bettger played a lovely variety of edgy psychopaths. Note his work in Union Station and The Greatest Show On Earth. Now we can add No Man Of Her Own to his career list of despicable villains.
I won't say more, but if it were done today without the Code, a more realistic ending would have been found. That does not take away from fine performances by Barbara Stanwyck and the rest of the cast, most especially Lyle Bettger.
Unlike so many of her films where she is a role model for feminism Stanwyck in No Man Of Her Own is a troubled and weak woman who has been made pregnant and dumped by her two timing no good rat of a boyfriend Lyle Bettger. He gives her a one way ticket to the West Coast as a farewell.
Despondent Stanwyck takes the train and is befriended by a young married couple Richard Denning and Phyllis Thaxter who is also pregnant. Both are killed in a train wreck and Stanwyck badly injured. Her baby is delivered by Caesarian section and Stanwyck decides that she would take Thaxter's identity and go to Denning's home town which is where they were heading and where no one had met Thaxter before.
It works even though Denning's brother John Lund is suspicious. He likes Barbara Stanwyck well enough though. His parents Henry O'Neill and Jane Cowl are accepting and of her and their 'grandson'.
Into this idyllic life comes Bettger looking for a little blackmail. At Paramount in the early Fifties Lyle Bettger played a lovely variety of edgy psychopaths. Note his work in Union Station and The Greatest Show On Earth. Now we can add No Man Of Her Own to his career list of despicable villains.
I won't say more, but if it were done today without the Code, a more realistic ending would have been found. That does not take away from fine performances by Barbara Stanwyck and the rest of the cast, most especially Lyle Bettger.