The Flame Within

New York City "nerve specialist" (which means psychiatrist) Ann Harding (as Mary White) returns the love declared by physician Herbert Marshall (as Gordon Phillips), but she declines his offer of marriage because Ms. Harding wants to focus on her career. Marriage means Harding would assume the "housewife" role exclusively. After Mr. Marshall tends to suicidal young Maureen O'Sullivan (as Lillian Belton), he recommends Harding see Ms. O'Sullivan professionally.

Harding meets O'Sullivan as she is trying to kill herself yet again, by jumping out a window. The two women take a cigarette break. Then, Harding decides the best way to stop O'Sullivan from killing herself is to have regular sessions with… no, not O'Sullivan, but her handsome young boyfriend. Yes, Harding figures she needs to cure O'Sullivan by making alcoholic Louis Hayward (as Jack Kerry) stop drinking. Things get complicated when a new love relationship forms...

Harding barely gets through this story, with her elbow often protruded and some emoting close-ups. Marshall tries to maintain dignity, against all odds. O'Sullivan is pretty. While lower-billed, Hayward unexpectedly becomes the story focus. A-list director Edmund Goulding was successful enough to write, produce, and direct "The Flame Within" at MGM, but psychiatry based on seeing a patient's alcoholic boyfriend seems unprofessional. Some of it is unintentionally funny.

**** The Flame Within (5/17/35) Edmund Goulding ~ Ann Harding, Herbert Marshall, Louis Hayward, Maureen O'Sullivan

A female psychiatrist in the 1930's eschews marriage for the indefinite present to the male doctor that she is in love with, a man of great character who waits only for her and who courts her constantly. She fears that marriage will mean no career (1930's women's issue)and she is excited about the newness of psychiatry and her potential. He refers to her the case of a suicidal social lite who is in love with an alcoholic. She succeeds with them both, only for an imperceptible attachment to the alcoholic to emerge full blown, to her embarrassment. The young alcoholic openly professes his love for the one who healed him, and the suicidal social lite, now wife to the alcoholic, expresses her venom. In a classic scene of timeless relevance, the psychiatrist does not reciprocate her obvious feelings, but dies to them, pressing the now sober young man not to relapse, and pressing him to be the strong one for his new bride as she, the doctor, has been the strong one for him as her patient. She tells him that "doing what is right" has its own "greater ecstasy." The young couple reunite happily, and the psychiatrist finds that the steady, true love of her doctor friend holds up through the obviously painful ordeal. 1930's culture and women's issues should not blur the impact and powerful relevance of the theme of dying to self interest to find fulfillment on a higher level.

Yikes, what a mess.

"The Flame Within" is from 1935 and stars Ann Harding, Herbert Marshall, Louis Hayward, Maureen O'Sullivan, and C. Aubrey Smith.

Harding is Dr. Mary White, a hard-working psychiatrist. Herbert Marshall plays Dr. Gordon Phillips, her good friend. He's in love with her and wants to marry her, but she resists. She would rather concentrate on her work. In those days, when a woman married, she stayed home. Mary isn't sure how that would work out for her.

Phillips has a suicidal patient, Linda (O'Sullivan) whom he convinces to see White. The problem is Linda's boyfriend, Jack (Hayward),is an alcoholic. Mary suggests that she counsel Jack and perhaps help him.

Jack manages to both stop drinking and fall in love with his doctor and vice versa - I mean, way to go, fall for the suicidal patient's love of her life. Mary and Jack find some happiness, but Linda picks up on the situation and becomes jealous.

Dated and muddled, this isn't the best film that these people have made though they all do their best to overcome the script. Maureen O'Sullivan is beautiful, and one thing about her -- she was always very earnest. Harding is stiff upper lip.

I'm not sure I liked the way this film ended. I loved all the actors but this script was pretty bad.

If one can get over the initially dated mores that this film begins with (a woman giving up her career on marriage) this is actually a very moving drama with much modern relevance.

Doctor Mary (Ann Harding) rejects marriage with Doctor Gordon (Herbert Marshall) because he expects her to give it all up on marriage. I wonder frankly if this seemed partly as silly in the 1930s as it does now. Either way, try to stomach your way through this first part because it gets very interesting as the plot progresses.

Doctor Mary helps Linda (Maureen O'Sullivan) who is suicidal over her not-very-much-requited love for Jack (Louis Hayward), an alcoholic. Doctor Mary's treatment is to send Jack away to dry out and get a job. Unfortunately, as is not uncommon with doctors/counsellors and patients, Jack falls in love with Mary. As is also not completely unknown, though hopefully considerably more rare, Mary also falls in love with Jack.

Fortunately choosing to follow professional ethics and common sense, she does the right thing, and rejects him. While this may have been for Hays Code reasons at the time, it reflects modern ethics pretty well. The denouement would have been far less palatable if she had ended up giving up her profession for a younger, alcoholic, former patient.

Doctor Gordon is sufficiently handsome, noble and intelligent throughout most of the rest of the film, that it's not a bad consolation that Doctor Mary ends up with him.

Linda, on the other hand, is the last person you'd encourage an alcoholic to marry or vice versa. One can't help but regard her marriage with Jack with a sadly cynical eye. She's a pretty awful person (a convincing performance by O'Sullivan).

This is a poignant film that has a lot of relevance for today. It has been described as a melodrama, but it's really simply a rather elegant and restrained drama. Highly recommended if you can find a copy or catch a viewing. I bought a DVD from a company that specialises in rare films.

I'm confused by the TCM production notes which refer to PCA concerns over "indication of effeminacy in the portrayal of Ramos". I'm not sure what character this refers to but there is no character or actor named Ramos in this film, nor any theme of "effeminacy" (by which I assume they refer to homosexuality). The quote comes from a book about the Catholic Church and Hollywood, and I suspect it has been taken out of context in some way, or the book errs.

Edmund Goulding produced, wrote and directed this peculiar melodrama about a suicidal woman in love with an alcoholic man, both treated by psychiatrist Ann Harding. The woman is Maureen O'Sullivan, who took an overdose of drugs because she loves Louis Hayward, who drinks too much and doesn't seem to care about her. So far, so good; it's probably happened many times in real life. But I winced when I saw how Harding handled it. Her idea was to get Hayward to stop drinking, virtually ignoring O'Sullivan's total dependence on Hayward's love to keep on living, instead of trying to get at the root of that dependence. Harding herself has some problems being in love with Herbert Marshall, who wants to marry her, but also wants her to give up her practice and become a homemaker, which she is not willing to do. This was the 1930's, after all, and men behaved that way. Harding gets Hayward to go to a rehabilitation center. He goes on the wagon for months, but becomes attached to Harding. She reminds him that O'Sullivan is as dependent on him as he is on herself. Her treatment works in that Hayward eventually marries O'Sullivan, and the pair seem to be happy. But not for long. O'Sullivan senses that not only does her husband love Harding, but also that she loves him. In a very dramatic scene, she accuses Harding of this and Harding can't deny it, but ponders what to do to keep their marriage intact.