My Reputation (1946)

My Reputation
Directed by Curtis Bernhardt
Written by Catherine Terney from a novel by Clare Jaynes
1946/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Jessica Drummond: You know, it’s amazing how I can learn to like martinis. It’s an acquired taste like anchovies.[/box]

Taking over a role that might otherwise gone to Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck is absolutely terrific in a glossy Warner Brothers “woman’s picture” that manages to stay clear of melodrama.

The year is 1942 and the city is Chicago.  As the story begins Jessica Drummond (Stanwyck) has just lost her husband after two years of illness.  She has two adolescent boys.  Her mother (Lucille Watson) is the model of turn-of-the century manners and is aghast that Jessica refuses to wear black.  A friend of the family is helping Jessica manage the estate.  After a decent interval has passed, the mother urges Jessica to marry him.  In the meantime, Jessica, while keeping up a brave front, is going nearly crazy with loneliness.  This gets worse when the boys return to boarding school.  Best friend Ginna (Eve Arden) urges Jessica to join her and her husband at their cabin at Lake Tahoe instead of going South with her mother as planned.  Jessica takes Ginna up on the offer.

At Lake Tahoe, Jessica meets cute with Maj. Scott Landis (George Brent) when she breaks a ski.  They spend most of the remaining days together but Jessica energetically rejects Scott’s advances and they part abruptly.  Jessica can’t get him out of her mind when she returns home, however, and when Ginna spots him at a Chicago restaurant Jessica rushes there to “accidentally” run into him.

Before long, Jessica is in love and ready to throw caution to the wind.  She even persists with the relationship after Scott makes clear that he is not the marrying kind.  But does Jessica have the strength to carry on with the affair over the objections of her mother and children and the ugly gossip in her social set?

The plot is quite reminiscent of All That Heaven Allows but Stanwyck’s character has more backbone from the get go than Jane Wyman’s ever mustered.  She is absolutely radiant here and the part lets her explore a broad range of emotions.  The staid George Brent does not really convince as a free spirit but does not detract from the film either.  Both Eve Arden and Lucille Watson are their usual enjoyable selves.  The film was sumptuously shot by cinematographer James Wong Howe and looks beautiful.  The film has been described as a melodrama but I really didn’t see that.  At no point does Stanwyck play the victim of anybody.  Recommended.

The film was made in 1943 but was not released to the general public until 1946.

Trailer