Top Secret Affair

Susan Hayward was a contract player at Warners and di a fww brief shots in WB films. Beautiful Susie left WB and went to Paramount where she got some plum roles such as Gary Cooper's Beau Geste, Frederic March I Married A Witch and Loretta Young in And Now Tomorrow

This film was set to be aBogey-Bacall film but the great Bogie developed cancer and both Bogie and Mrs Bogart aka Lauren Bacall droped out and Jack Warner asked Susan Hayward to return to WB where Susie was given a star Bungalow on the WB lot and her fave cinematographer Stanley Cortez (Cortez did the great train shot with Jennifer Jones and Robert Walker in Since You went Away), and her fave costume exec Charles LaMaire. Susan looks beautiful in this Carrolton Production her own production company named after her adopted town in Georgia (Susan married Floyd Eaton Chalkley a former FBI agent who was a strong Catholic and Susan converted to Catholicism and both Chalkley and Susan are interred in the Church graveyard.

Kirk Douglas replaced Bogart in this beautifully filmed movie.

This was inspired by John P. Marquand's 1951 novel "Melville Goodwin: USA." The book was about an Army general's affair with a prominent woman, and it was one of Marquand's most entertaining. Unfortunately, the movie retains almost nothing of the original story except for the names of the two romantic leads. In the book, the general is already married, and making him a bachelor in the movie simply changes everything. The movie even eliminates the narrator of the book, who supplied much of its humor. Readers of the book can watch the movie with no sense of what will happen next. The two are that different, and the movie is undeniably inferior.

For movie goers of the 1950s, "Top Secret Affair" was an entertaining film starring Kirk Douglas and Susan Hayward. As a comedy romance, it's about as far-fetched a plot as many such films are. And, that's where some of the enjoyment comes from. The comedy is fair with a screenplay that has a tough time swinging the leading lady back and forth as a villain, then lover, then villain, then lover.

Susan Hayward's Dottie Peale is a publishing tycoon who first wants to torpedo Maj. Gen. Melville Goodwin (Kirk Douglas) as new head of the Joint Atomic International Commission. The best of the comedy comes in her various failed attempts to get him on tape and film in bad positions. After they have a night's romance, that doesn't last, to her dismay, she goes back to plan one. This happens a couple times

The movie borrowed some from a 1951 novel, "Melville Goodwin," by John Marquand. But that was mostly the names with major revisions in the characters and story. It's mostly fluff, but enjoyable stuff for the stars and their supporting cast.

With the powerful energy and sex appeal present in both Kirk Douglas and Susan Hayward, isn't it strange that when they finally made a movie together, it was a comedy? It's an oddball comedy, a supposed battle of the sexes that doesn't really hit the mark of any target, but if you want to see both their energies up on the silver screen together, you've got to rent it.

Kirk is a war hero, a general up for a big promotion. Suzy is a journalist, in charge of a great deal of publicity (good or bad) in the country. She doesn't know him and doesn't like him, and she plans to turn a seemingly harmless interview into a damning reputation crusher. Kirk arrives at her house with his faithful sidekicks, Paul Stewart and Jim Backus, and his precise regime of eating, exercise, bedtime, and moral etiquette immediately irritate Suzy. What does she do when she realizes there's no legitimate dirt to find? She forgets she's a journalist and remembers she's a woman; in other words, she fights dirty.

Even though this is far from a romantic comedy, some naughty bits made it through the censors and amused audiences. In order to be alone with him, Suzy says she gets "inhibited with more than one man in the bedroom," effectively sending Jim and Paul away. When she's particularly mad, Kirk reminds her she can't yet make good on her threat to kill him, because "generals die in bed," and in that scene they're nowhere near a bedroom. There were some funny moments, and some more dramatic moments, but all in all it felt like a waste of their talents. Since we all know they're capable of making better movies, have one of your favorites on hand for next weekend.

Dottie Peale (Susan Hayward) is the formidable anti-military head of a media empire. Maj. Gen. Melville A. Goodwin (Kirk Douglas) is a fast-rising popular figure who has been appointed to a political position. Dottie wants that position for a family friend and is looking to take down Goodwin to get it.

I want a better meet-cute at an earlier point. She shouldn't be in a mind set before their first meeting. If he could get her goat sooner, she would be that much more driven to take him down. This has to accept the required precepts of the great meet-cute. The aim should be a love-hate relationship, but this starts with hate-hate. It's not quite right, but they do move in the right direction. Drunken Hayward is fun. It is an interesting pairing with the age-appropriate Hayward. I don't know if they do other movies together. Bogie and Bacall is probably the more standard pairing.