BACK STREET (1941)

Only Kleenex Tissues got more out of teary-eyed women (and men) than sob-sister Fannie Hurst. This typical three-hankie novel, while not reaching the rapt heights of IMITATION OF LIFE/’34 nor the soulful depths of HUMOURESQUE/’20* or YOUNGER GENERATION/’29, had three major filmings: 1932; 1941; 1961. (Fine period flavor in ‘32, but with dull, dull John Boles. And the 1961 updating lends a moldy feel.) Here, Margaret Sullavan plays modern working gal in turn-of-the-last-century Cincinnati, flirting with the fellas (like nice automobile inventor Richard Carlson), but holding out for transfiguring love. Enter devastating charmer Charles Boyer, an equally smitten out-of-town banker, extending his stay until he realizes he’ll just have to break his engagement to that fiancée back in New Orleans. But when a definitive meeting for the lovers is missed, they go their separate ways until fate has them accidentally meet in NYC five long years later. He: now married with kid (and one on the way). She: living alone & designing ladies wear. But true love cannot die, even if it must be maintained on the side; in a Back Street apartment; as a ‘kept’ woman. If only Boyer’s pesky kids hadn’t picked up on the gossip as young adults! Smoothly directed by Robert Stevenson, it’s mercifully brisk, with cinematographer Williams Daniels glamming up Sullavan when he gets the right angle. But the film only comes fully alive when old pal Frank McHugh puts two-and-two together in a little railroad station scene with Boyer & Sullavan (talk about a lesson in film acting!) and in a pair of standoffs with Boyer’s son Tim Holt (arrogant/repentant) which in hindsight look like an audition for his role next year in Orson Welles’ MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL: Sullavan debuted with another ‘fallen woman’ role in ONLY YESTERDAY/’33, against John Boles from BACK STREET 1932. (YESTERDAY’s main sudsy tale is okay, but the film touches greatness dramatizing the 1929 Wall Street Crash in its opening two reels.) And in 1939, Boyer missed another life-altering meeting in LOVE AFFAIR, with Irene Dunne, who had starred against Boles in the 1932 BACK STREET, as the no-show.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *The better-known 1946 version of HUMORESQUE (Joan Crawford, John Garfield) is more Clifford Odets/George Gershwin Rhapsody than Fannie Hurst.