Back Street

Rae Schmidt (Irene Dunne) is a free spirited girl in the early 20th century who meets dapper Walter Saxel (John Boles) one day when she is seeing off an acquaintance on a train trip. Walter is engaged, but this marriage is his mother's dream more than his own, and he and Rae quickly fall for one another. Walter gets the idea that he might get his mother to come around to him marrying Rae instead if they could meet. They plan to have a "chance" meeting at a band concert the next day that Walter will be attending with his mother. But fate intervenes and Rae doesn't get there until after everyone has left because of a family emergency that she must attend to. Walter thinks he's been stood up.

Five years pass and Walter and Ray meet again, this time in New York. Walter married his fiancée and now has two children. But that doesn't stop them from starting a long running affair since both have loved one another all of these years. He rents an apartment that she lives in, and she gives up her job so she can be available when he needs her. She also gives up her friends because she can't risk anybody finding out about this arrangement as Walter is the member of a prominent family and has a prominent job with a prominent bank. What does he give up - Zilch, Zip, Nada.

This is a creaky soap opera to be sure, but well-acted and very well directed by Stahl. The episodic story left some plot points dangling (what did the car inventor think of Rae dumping him and running back to Walter? And what did daddy think of Rae's lifestyle? He's dropped, too, after the early scenes) I thought this was the best of the three versions. The second is well acted, but Boyer comes off as a cad overall. Boles, in this version, is more sincere and nicer (though still selfish). The 60s remake is pretty bad, saved in part by Vera Miles as the shrewish wife (which is a minor part in the first two versions). Dunne is good, as always. She played the same kind of part in The Secret of Madame Blanche shortly after this.

I wondered why Walter didn't at some point divorce his wife as apparently his marriage was just something he did to make his mother happy. I thought he was staying just to protect his career, and then I found out something about the source material. In the novel, Walter was Jewish and under pressure from his mother to marry a Jewish girl. Given the times, it's not too surprising this was dropped in the film versions, even in the precode era. It does dilute the man's motivations in the story considerably.

Being a mistress to a married man is a thankless position to be in, according to one of early 1900's more popular novelists, Fanny Hurst. Her 1931 'Back Street was an enormously popular best-selling novel about a confident young woman in Cincinnati who's swept off her feet by a man about to get married. Universal Pictures took the bold step to bring Hurst's book onto the screen in August 1932's "Back Street." Irene Dunne plays the independent Ray Schmidt, whom in modern times was a cinch to be a highly successful business woman. Walter Saxel (John Boles), while stepping off a train a week before he conjoins with a rich socialite in the city, has the temerity to ask the strolling Ms. Schmidt out on a date. So begins Ray's slippery slope down a frustrating rat hole.

Before divorce laws determined that either spouse could cite reasons to split, couples had to BOTH agree for the separation before the courts' ruled the marriage over. If one refused, then no divorce was granted. Many prominent figures, such as William Randolph Hearst and Spencer Tracy, failed to get their spouses to agree on a separation, and would, if the mistresses were lucky, shack up with them. According to "Back Street," playing second fiddle to a married man was a delusory, lonely life. In fact, the term "back streets" derives from Hurst's book. Ms. Schmidt informs her friend, who finds herself in a similar situation with a married man, that "there is no happiness on a back street in anyone's life." Ray Schmidt finds herself in this relationship because, to use a Blaise Pascal phrase, "the heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of."

John Stahl's adroit direction is aided by, as film reviewer Antti Alanen notes, "Irene Dunne's extraordinary performance. Her film career had started but two years earlier, her performance here reflects she has already a mature approach of great charm, sophistication, and complexity." The American Film Institute nominated Stahl's work as one of 400 to be considered for the top 100 America's Greatest Love Stories.

Three of the best actresses around, Irene Dunne, Margaret Sullavan, and Susan Hayward all played the lead role of Rae Schmidt in three different versions of Back Street. It's a timeless tale and can be adapted to any time and place in history. The novel by Fannie Hurst was written in 1931 and most of the action takes place in the pre-World War I years and then jumps to the present day of 1932 reflecting the time she's been a Back Street woman.

Back Street the story is once again an affirmation of the heart having its own reasons. In this first film version Irene Dunne meets John Boles who is an upwardly mobile young man in the banking business. That's it for her she's in love. But Boles is about to get married to Doris Lloyd. Still when Boles goes to New York where he becomes successful he sets Dunne up in an apartment there and she's his kept woman for over 20 years.

Reading the Wikipedia article on Back Street one crucial component is missing from this adaption. The fact that Boles is Jewish and much under his mother's thumb to marry within the faith. Maude Turner Gordon plays the mother and she's formidable. But Boles is the weakest thing in this adaption. Without the religious component he comes across like a Mama's boy.

Like it or not Dunne is stuck on him. She even passes up an opportunity to marry boy next door George Meeker who makes it big with those new fangled contraptions, the horseless carriage.

Back Street both book and film version and take your choice set a standard for tales of romance on the side and sly. This one set the mark for the other two to follow.

The first of the thrice filmed Fanny Hurst novel under the tasteful direction of John Stahl features a superb performance from Irene Dunne. From carefree youth to dying day Dunne gives an incredibly restrained yet powerfully emotional effort of a woman who signs her own death warrant to the American ideal.

Ray Schmidt is one elusive chick to the men chasing her. On to the traveling salesman con she also rejects the well intentioned local boy with promise Kurt Schlender who nevertheless remains persistent. One day at the train depot she's introduced to Walter Saxel (John Boles). The two hit it off and embark on an on off affair until the day they die.

Dunne endures the highs and lows of the relationship with a low key melancholy, much of it reflected in her eyes and long silences that reaches the audience and speaks volumes. The tragic chemistry between the two is evident in many of their scenes as they knowingly play out the doomed affair that will never attain respectability with a wan despair.

Stahl along with cameraman Karl Freund provide one fine background after the next with some beautiful set pieces as well some tender two shot close-ups of the star crossed lovers conflicted by their desperate passion for each other and the "proper " thing to do. A top rate tearjerker.

This Stahl weeper stars Irene Dunne as John Boles' kept woman, whom George Meeker wants to marry, although I thought that Meeker might be the 6th Marx Brother, judging by his look and voice.

It's from a Fanny Hurst opus, but even though the script is not as intelligent as yesterday's Seed, it's a much better movie. It's tighter -- ten minutes shorter -- with a beautiful set-piece opening which purports to be Cincinnati in 1907, complete with band shell, no automobiles and plenty of horses -- spotless streets, despite the horses. Was you ever in Cincinnati, Charlie?

I still don't like soapers, but Irene's oh-well-it-is-what-it-is attitude when she can't help lovin' dat man o' someone else's is far more affecting than the typical overwrought attitude.