It's 1942. Jessica Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck) has just buried her husband Paul, who died after a long illness. He has left her financially secure - enough money to live comfortably and send their two sons, Kim (Scotty Beckett) and Keith (Bobby Cooper) to the boarding school Paul attended in his youth. But with widowhood, Jessica finds that life in her suburban town is much different than she expected. She is hounded by her mother, Mary Kimball (Lucile Watson) about proper behavior and finding a new husband (preferably Frank Everett (Warner Anderson) the family lawyer), is pursued by George Van Orman (Jerome Cowan), a would-be philanderer, and she finds she now that she is no longer part of a couple, she has no no real company except her maid, Anna (Esther Dale). So, when her friends Ginna (Eve Arden) and Cary Abbott (John Ridgely) invite her on a skiing tip, she desperately accepts. It is there that she meets Major Scott Landis (George Brent), an officer awaiting permanent assignment abroad. The two are quickly attracted to one another, but while Scott seems more interested in a fling, Jessica has commitment on her mind. Will the two be able to cross the abyss to create a lasting relationship? Thus begins My Reputation (1946). Our entire group was very impressed with this film. Yes, it has some of the tropes of a woman's film - the letchy married man, who thinks widows are fair game; the overbearing mother; the gossipy neighbors; the man who is "not the marrying kind" - but in many cases, the film upsets some of those tropes. As a result, you watch with engagement. It's not always apparent where the film is going to go next. As always, Stanwyck is magnificent in a part that requires a lot of character growth (this TCM article is especially enthusiastic about her contributions to the film). While it can be hard to imagine her as someone mother-pecked, she does it successfully. Her frustration with her mother, and her initial inability to adapt to the world without her husband are not only convincing, they are spot-on. We like her for her maternal instincts - to let her boys go away to school, as they and their father wanted. But we ache for her loneliness, and her desire to just ask them to stay with her, if only for a little while.
The boys at first might seem a bit selfish. But it is evident that Keith, the older of the two boys, is sensitive to the proprieties and to his mother's needs.
He tries to guide his younger brother, Kim. But for Kim, the loss of his father has not yet hit home. The action of the film opens the day after the funeral. We know that Paul's death was far from sudden (we later find out he was in tremendous pain - assumedly cancer). We can assume that not only were the boys aware that their father was dying, but that for several days, they've had to be on best behavior, and put up with adult funeral behavior (how many "I'm so sorry for your loss" can a child take?) Though they love their mother, and want to be with her, they also want to break out. The early desire to attend a baseball game not only allows them to become free of the funeral responsibilities, it provides a means to memorialize their father, who always took them to the game. And Jessica understands and tries to allow them to begin the process of life over again. There's no surprise when George is revealed to be a cad, or when or
when Riette (Leona Maricle) is shown to be a harpy. But, one is
surprised when Mrs. Kimble turns out to be right about the town and the proprieties of mourning. We want Jessica to be
the one who is correct, but ultimately, it is her mother who has her
finger on the pulse of the community. A little calculation
demonstrated that Jessica was a bit younger than her youngest son when
Mr. Kimble died (her mother has been a widow for 25 years), and Mrs.
Kimble has had to cope with life alone since then. She wants her
daughter to remarry (with her approval, of course), and she is a
stickler for the conventions of mourning. That she still wears black
seems excessive; but Mrs. Kimble understands the responsibilities of
being a widow raising children alone, and she wants more for her
daughter. We root for Jessica to find independence; but the film shows
us that it comes with a price.
George Brent treads a careful path with the character of Scott. It would have been easy to make him either heroic or caddish - Brent makes sure he is neither. As a man who never imagined himself within a family, he needs to grow and mature. Though released in 1946, the film is carefully situated in the early years of the Second World War. Scott is well aware that he will be going to fight. His reluctance to take on the burden of a wife and family (that could be left alone) is understandable, as is his desire to spend time with Jessica, even if it means she will be away from her children. But it also marks his innate selfishness, a trait that needs to change if he is to ever be a part of Jessica's life. This was Mr. Brent's final film with Warner Brothers (AFI Catalog); the same year, he would portray Professor Warren in RKO's The Spiral Staircase. We wish there had been more of Eve Arden, who is a delight in everything she does. Every moment with her is a gift - she plays Ginna as wry and amusing, but supportive to Jessica, and to her husband, with whom she has an easy-going and loving relationship. With a career that began in 1937, and continued until 1987 (she died three years later, age 82), Ms. Arden spent much of her career playing the best friend (Mildred Pierce, for example), who knows the world WAY too well. She segued from radio into television with Our Miss Brooks, where she got to play the lead as the smart and assertive Connie Brooks, a high-school English teacher (she also played Connie in the movie of the same name). Married twice, with three children, Ms. Arden survived her husband of 32 years. Her final appearance on television, in Falcon Crest, was with her dear friend, Jane Wyman.
The film features excellent performances by a
number of child actors, notably Scott Beckett and Bobby Cooper, who play
the Drummond brothers as good kids who are trying to cope with a new
way of living. Janice Wilson, who we last saw in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
plays Penny Boardman, a neighbor who is very attracted to Keith, and
Ann E. Todd plays Gretchen van Orman, the daughter of the rather nasty
Riette and George. Bosley Crowther, in his New York Times review, is being very cranky, we think, when he says the film is "much ado about nothing—or practically nothing." We disagree and suggest you give it a viewing. This trailer will give you a taste.
On a rainy night, Sam Masterson (Darryl Hickman) meets Martha Smith (Janis Wilson) at the train yard in Iverstown, as they try to escape from the town and all it represents. Orphaned Martha despises her guardian - her Aunt Ivers (Judith Anderson), the town's doyen and tyrant. The feeling is mutual - Martha's father was a millhand in Miss Ivers mill; upon his death, Miss Ivers grudgingly adopted her sister's child, and forced her to take the name of Ivers, hoping to obliterate all evidence of his existence. Escape, however, proves futile for Martha; with the police force on alert, Martha (and her beloved cat) are apprehended and returned to the not-so-tender mercies of her Aunt. Undeterred, Martha attempts to escape again, but the consequences of the attempt are such that they will haunt Martha for the rest of her life. Thus begins The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), a film noir classic starring Barbara Stanwyck as the adult Martha, Van Heflin as the grown Sam, and Kirk Douglas (Walter O'Neill), appearing in his first film role. To say that this is an odd picture is not meant as an insult. The film is complicated and dense. As this New York Timesreview says, it is a film where all the characters' "sordid deeds are neatly pulled together like so many pieces in a jigsaw puzzle." Several impressive performances contribute to the film's appeal. Barbara Stanwyck, of course, is outstanding as Martha. She plays a woman who wants freedom, but who has spent her entire life in one prison or another. Does Martha really love Sam, or does she love the freedom that he represents? Does her warped nature come from the cruelty she faced from her Aunt, or from the blackmail of Walter and his father? And is she ultimately responsible for the two deaths in the film, or should others take the blame? Regardless of the answers, we know that Martha has spent her life trying to atone for what she sees as her sins, by trying to make Iverstown and the factory less of the hell that it was when her Aunt was alive.
For Lizabeth
Scott as Antonia 'Toni' Maracek, this was only her second film role. Her character serves as an interesting contrast to Martha, light where she is dark, common, where Martha appears high tone, but, like Martha, she too is a prisoner. Though Toni's prison is a real one - convicted of a crime she denies committing, she is on probation, but constantly facing the specter of jail. Lizabeth Scott had a long and complicated life, but a relatively abbreviated career. With 31 film and TV credits (between 1945 and 1972), she is best remembered for this film, Dead Reckoning, and Too Late for Tears, all film noir classics. Her looks and her voice are reminiscent of Lauren Bacall, but she didn't really have the versatility of Bacall. She started her career in the New York theatre; she was Tallulah Bankhead's understudy in the part of Sabina The Skin of Our Teeth (much to Ms. Bankhead's disgust. For more discussion on this, see the Wikipedia article on Ms. Scott)
She did eventually get to play Sabina - when Gladys George became ill. This performance brought her to the attention of Hal Wallis, the producer of our film. Wallis wanted to bill his find with her name above the title, but Barbara Stanwyck objected (Hal Wallis: Producer to the Stars by Bernard F. Dick). It didn't help. The virtually unknown Scott still got third billing above the title (it has been alleged that Scott and Wallis were having an affair, or at the very least that Wallis was infatuated with her).
Scott's troubles began in the 1950s. Confidential Magazine published an article accusing her of being lesbian. She sued; the trial ended with a mistrial. Add in her growing stage fright, and her career was virtually over. She tried singing; the attempt went nowhere. So, she segued over to televsion, where she had a relatively decent career. She also returned to college (at USC). She married twice - both lasted less than a year; she was linked romantically with Burt Lancaster, James Mason, Helmut Dantine, and Burt Bacharach, among others. She died in 2015 of congestive heart failure. She was 92. To hear more about Ms Scott, try this interview that was done in 1996.
Kirk Douglas is outstanding in this role, which would be an unusual one for him. Walter is a weakling, dominated by both his father and Martha. His guilt and feelings of hopelessness lead him into alcoholism. In this TCM article, Douglas relays his method for creating a character like Walter: "when you play a weak character, find a moment when he's strong, and if
you're playing a strong character, find a moment when he's weak. I had a
moment when I was at the desk - I stood up, grabbed Van Heflin by the
shirt, and stared him in the eye. He was amazed at this sudden moment of
strength, and it confused him. We shot it, and the director said, 'Very
good.' Van Heflin said, 'Let's do it again.' The next time I grabbed
him, he just looked down contemptuously at my hand. How smart of him -
he took away the strength. Nothing wrong with that. As an actor, it was
the right thing to do." His work was not unnoticed - this AFI Catalog entry notes that Louella Parsons was particularly taken with this "wonder boy."
Several child actors appear in the beginning of the film. We were particularly intrigued with the performance of Janis Wilson. Ms. Wilson had a notably short career; between 1942 and 1948, she appeared in only seven films, after which she left show business. But when you realize that those films include Watch on the Rhine and Now Voyager (along with this film), she had an impressive resume. She was 18 when she retired - always a difficult age for teen actors. Interestingly, she met her future husband (they married in 1955) when she was 12 years old (on the set of Now Voyager.) She died in 2003.
It's not surprising that Stanwyck's dresses are spectacular. Her favorite designer, Edith Head, created them. Ms. Head would later say that Stanwyck's long waist usually resulted in her costumes being dowdy looking, but Head found ways to camouflage her waist. As a result, Stanwyck would often request Head design for her (even in private life). See this review of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True, 1907-1940 for a brief discussion of their relationship. We leave you with the trailer for this fascinating film. And we send advance birthday wishes to Kirk Douglas, who will reach 100 on December 9th:
