NEVER SAY GOODBYE (1956)

Regrettably sensible remake of William Dieterle’s inane ‘Women’s Weepie’ THIS LOVE OF OURS/’45.  Prepped for Douglas Sirk, he apparently dealt it off to impersonal journeyman director Jerry Hopper, one of five films in ‘56.  (Cinematographer Maury Gertsman even busier with eight.)  What likely put Sirk off the project is that ‘sensible’ factor, inadvertently flattening the absurdities without gaining much in credibility.  Rock Hudson’s a single father to a little girl with a morbid fixation on her late mother.  But when Hudson manages to tear himself away from this clinging vine to attend a doctor’s conference, a rare night out with the boys brings him face-to-face with . . . the supposedly dead wife.  Yikes!  Worse, in a fit of shame she immediately dashes in front of a car and he must operate to save her life.  Waking, she now lives only to return to the daughter she hasn’t seen in seven years.  But what to tell the child?  In the original, a false scandal caused the rift; now it’s exacerbated by having Mom get stuck behind the Iron Curtain, unable to cross over and explain it all to Rock.  (Apparently, she also doesn’t know how to write a letter.)  Hudson quite the unattractive character in this one: jealous, controlling, self-centered.  But the main trouble stems from that sensible Iron Curtain angle which only highlights the artificiality everywhere else.  Especially in her work as background pianist to nightclub ‘insult’ illustrator George Sanders, adding a touch of sexual threat Claude Rains didn’t bring to the role in the earlier film.  He's the best thing in the film.  The first film is perhaps more ridiculous, but the pieces go together.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Failed star push for Euro-male lead Charles Korvin in 1945 mirrored by this film’s failed star push for Euro-female lead (and Ingrid Bergman wannabee) Cornell Borchers.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/01/this-love-of-ours-1945.html