Out of curiosity, I chose to look out this movie immediately after viewing the Douglas Sirk-directed 1950's remake to contrast and compare different obsessions you might say. I have to say right at the outset that it's really no contest. With his flair for composition, narrative flow and ability to coax the best out of his actors Sirk wins hands down.
It probably doesn't help that I'm no fan of Robert Taylor which no doubt stems from my perception of his part in the Hollywood blacklist hearings of the 1940s and '50s (c.f. John Wayne, Adolphe Menjou, Ronald Reagan and others) but for the first half of the movie his acting is so highly mannered and gauche to the point of being look-away bad. Irene Dunne on the other hand attempts to sail serenely through in her part of the grieving widow and later blinded victim of Taylor's Bob Merrick's ham-fisted attempt to woo her, but she comes across as too cold and privileged to make you care much for her character. As for her daughter-in-law and her hapless older husband, they appear hopelessly mismatched with the latter in particular appearing to be cast purely for some misguided comic relief.
I found the direction to be slow and laboured with lots of slow dissolves, lingering close-ups, overt religiosity and forced humour, while, as indicated, most of the acting seems stagey and overplayed. Once Taylor settles down to his magnificent obsession the film does play a bit better but without someone like Sirk to recognise the story for the glorified, at times sanctified soap opera that it really is and treat it accordingly with velvet gloves, the story in director John M Stahl's hands, plods along somewhat aimlessly rather like Dunne with her affliction.
For my sins I'm going to look out director Stahl's other Sirk-reworked movie "Imitation Of Life", also starring Dunne, but with some trepidation after enduring this rather stiff and hackneyed production.
It probably doesn't help that I'm no fan of Robert Taylor which no doubt stems from my perception of his part in the Hollywood blacklist hearings of the 1940s and '50s (c.f. John Wayne, Adolphe Menjou, Ronald Reagan and others) but for the first half of the movie his acting is so highly mannered and gauche to the point of being look-away bad. Irene Dunne on the other hand attempts to sail serenely through in her part of the grieving widow and later blinded victim of Taylor's Bob Merrick's ham-fisted attempt to woo her, but she comes across as too cold and privileged to make you care much for her character. As for her daughter-in-law and her hapless older husband, they appear hopelessly mismatched with the latter in particular appearing to be cast purely for some misguided comic relief.
I found the direction to be slow and laboured with lots of slow dissolves, lingering close-ups, overt religiosity and forced humour, while, as indicated, most of the acting seems stagey and overplayed. Once Taylor settles down to his magnificent obsession the film does play a bit better but without someone like Sirk to recognise the story for the glorified, at times sanctified soap opera that it really is and treat it accordingly with velvet gloves, the story in director John M Stahl's hands, plods along somewhat aimlessly rather like Dunne with her affliction.
For my sins I'm going to look out director Stahl's other Sirk-reworked movie "Imitation Of Life", also starring Dunne, but with some trepidation after enduring this rather stiff and hackneyed production.