It's a shame to see some fine actors engage in such a mixed-up melodrama. They struggle to make the story acceptable. It can't be done. I began to write a summary of the plot. It's so awful I deleted it. Try, and you'll see. Let's just skip to the creepiest parts. Dr. Richard Talbot, indulging a midlife crisis, finds Nora, a young woman who, inexplicably, finds him attractive. Richard wants to ditch his humdrum life. He doesn't ask for a divorce. Why? He can't inflict the devastation, so he says, the pain that he will cause his family, loving wife and children. His teenage daughter hugs him so, so tenderly. She is so upset when he almost misses her birthday. He can't bear to do it. So, what does he do? He abandons them. (Now he'll miss all her birthday parties.) He fakes his death. He flees, in the middle of the night, forever. He leaves them more than devastated, thinking he is dead. What a monster! Obviously, his family's feelings meant nothing. He's heartless, self-absorbed, and a coward. Face the wife and children? He'd rather have the pleasure of imagining their tears, tender teenage daughter included, mourning for him. They'll endure a monstrous farce of a funeral. They will weep, no doubt, over a coffined, crisply-calcinated corpse that isn't his corpse. He'll be far away in a new life. That's it for Richard Talbot, as far as I am concerned. He's despicable. Yet the movie insists that we find him sympathetic, so we can feel sorry for him at the end. Really?
It gets worse. Richard and Nora escape to New York. He lies. He tells her he is awaiting his divorce papers. But he's terrified they will be recognized. He forces her to hide in a hotel. She's bored. He confesses the whole thing. She's OK with it. She won't leave him. The clear, the obvious, the only thing to do is to move. Go somewhere. Go to Canada. Go to Tahiti, to North Dakota. Go somewhere, anywhere where you won't meet old acquaintances. Then live in blissful anonymity. No. They stay in New York. Now he hides in the hotel and she goes out in public. He gets bored, and jealous, and drunk. I won't even go into what follows. At this point I've given up on the plot. Finally, Richard is arrested for the crime he didn't commit. Now, of course, the moral thing to do, if he had any morals, is to quit the subterfuge, own up to his trick. He and Nora could still go off to some foreign shore and live their love. But no. Richard, craven and self-centered as always, won't identify himself. Imagine, he tells Nora weepily, imagine the reproaches, the looks of hatred I'd get from my former family. How could I live with them? (You won't live with them, Richard; they'll kick you out on your ear.) He swears Nora to silence. He ruins her, as surely as he had ruined his wife and adoring daughter. He condemns her to hold within her a terrible secret. She will drift through a life of loneliness and sadness. Then he can wallow in self-pity while he orchestrates another farce, in the courtroom. The only way to redeem this stuff would be to have Nora blurt out the secret just before the jury comes in with its verdict. That would crush his ego. That I would have liked.
It's a shame to see good actors saddled with bad material. Usually I like Kent Smith ("Cat People," "The Spiral Staircase"). He is bland and flat in this role. Frankly, I don't see what Ann Sheridan's Nora sees in him to begin with. Ann Sheridan does succeed, because she was a very fine actress, in transcending the material as far as humanly possible. Nora is not much of a femme fatale. She's rather pathetic, and that at least lets us sympathize with her. The performance that stands out is that of Rosemary DeCamp. She invests the put-upon wife with a quiet dignity. And she provides a touch of extraordinary acting. In the courtroom scene, the lawyer asks: look at the accused as say whether you recognize him. She stares intently and curiously. Watch carefully. For an instant, just an instant, her eyes light up with recognition. She knows who he is. Then the light goes out and she says no. It's incredibly subtle. She has seen through the plot. She could save him. She sends him to perdition. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe I want to see that message in her look because he deserves a ticket to the netherworld.
It gets worse. Richard and Nora escape to New York. He lies. He tells her he is awaiting his divorce papers. But he's terrified they will be recognized. He forces her to hide in a hotel. She's bored. He confesses the whole thing. She's OK with it. She won't leave him. The clear, the obvious, the only thing to do is to move. Go somewhere. Go to Canada. Go to Tahiti, to North Dakota. Go somewhere, anywhere where you won't meet old acquaintances. Then live in blissful anonymity. No. They stay in New York. Now he hides in the hotel and she goes out in public. He gets bored, and jealous, and drunk. I won't even go into what follows. At this point I've given up on the plot. Finally, Richard is arrested for the crime he didn't commit. Now, of course, the moral thing to do, if he had any morals, is to quit the subterfuge, own up to his trick. He and Nora could still go off to some foreign shore and live their love. But no. Richard, craven and self-centered as always, won't identify himself. Imagine, he tells Nora weepily, imagine the reproaches, the looks of hatred I'd get from my former family. How could I live with them? (You won't live with them, Richard; they'll kick you out on your ear.) He swears Nora to silence. He ruins her, as surely as he had ruined his wife and adoring daughter. He condemns her to hold within her a terrible secret. She will drift through a life of loneliness and sadness. Then he can wallow in self-pity while he orchestrates another farce, in the courtroom. The only way to redeem this stuff would be to have Nora blurt out the secret just before the jury comes in with its verdict. That would crush his ego. That I would have liked.
It's a shame to see good actors saddled with bad material. Usually I like Kent Smith ("Cat People," "The Spiral Staircase"). He is bland and flat in this role. Frankly, I don't see what Ann Sheridan's Nora sees in him to begin with. Ann Sheridan does succeed, because she was a very fine actress, in transcending the material as far as humanly possible. Nora is not much of a femme fatale. She's rather pathetic, and that at least lets us sympathize with her. The performance that stands out is that of Rosemary DeCamp. She invests the put-upon wife with a quiet dignity. And she provides a touch of extraordinary acting. In the courtroom scene, the lawyer asks: look at the accused as say whether you recognize him. She stares intently and curiously. Watch carefully. For an instant, just an instant, her eyes light up with recognition. She knows who he is. Then the light goes out and she says no. It's incredibly subtle. She has seen through the plot. She could save him. She sends him to perdition. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe I want to see that message in her look because he deserves a ticket to the netherworld.