Toujours dans mon coeur

TCM showed this film and I saved it on my DVR for later viewing. Barbara Stanwyck, World War I, Germans and throw in mystery...sounded like a good old war themed movie. Turns out it was a movie that could have only been made around 1933. It was sandwiched just right between the two World Wars to deal with the issues in the film. It showed the life of a German who married an American in the years before the Great War. Later in the film the War became a major focus and impact upon his life and his family. My grandfather was of German heritage. He was born in the US but both his parents were from Germany. When he became of age he attempted to enlist in WW I but was turned down because he was 'German'. Didn't matter that his family had arrived before the Civil War and had fought for the Union. When my family finished viewing this film we all thought - this film is 'different'. The theme was not something I was expecting and not something I had every seen in other films. A young Barbara Stanwyck was a bonus. Worth watching if you enjoy older films.

"Ever In My Heart" starts off slowly and uneventfully, a pretty pedestrian story that seems both tendentious and predictable. Barbara Stanwyck grows up in a waspy New England town. Her best friend/fiancé (Bellamy) returns from Europe with a German friend (Kruger), who sweeps Stanwyck off her feet. They marry. WWI arrives and the town turns against the couple, who are accused of sympathizing with the Germans. Hardships ensue.

Stanwyck is terrific, and Otto Kruger is surprisingly warm and effective in his role. Later in his career he played spies and double agents in scores of WWII films. Ralph Bellamy, of course, played the good-natured slob who lost the girl.

The film is a hyperbolic screed against small-town prejudice, and the first half seems forced and simplistic, but picks up in the second half with the onset of the war. I thought the ending was quite powerful and hard to watch, a tribute to actors who know their craft. I appreciate Stanwyck more with each picture, mostly these early ones which are seldom shown.

The First World War saw the debut not only of new military technology, but also new weapons of psychological warfare. It was the first war fought with means of mass persuasion as well as mass production. To get the American public in the proper fighting spirit for their inevitable entry into the war, the authorities deliberately and uncritically passed along British propaganda which wildly exaggerated or just plain fabricated German atrocities. (Sadly for all concerned, real German acts of brutality, especially in the conquered Low Countries, gave this propaganda an air of plausibility.)

It's unfortunate that, given its time and circumstances, this movie can only hint at the pervasive ugliness of these manufactured images of the gleefully nun-raping, baby-bayoneting "Bestial Hun", and the vicious persecution it inspired against German immigrants.

Though the glimpses it does show are often harrowing, as the story tracks the collapse of the blissful marriage between a professor (Otto Kruger) from Germany who teaches at a small college, and his American wife (Barbara Stanwyck), under the pressure of the growing hatred and intolerance they face from almost everyone around them. Even if the plot's predictable and the final twist is pretty contrived, and with few exceptions the acting and direction are about what you'd expect from a time when talking pictures were only four years old, I still have to give Warner Brothers some credit simply for having made a film -- even a low-budget "weeper" like this -- showing at least in some small way how war can corrode our humanity on the home front, too.

The other major thing this picture has going for it from my point of view is, of course, Barbara Stanwyck: In the moments when she subtly transcends what could otherwise have been just another mawkish, pedestrian melodrama, you can clearly see a great actress who's just beginning to hit her stride. She even manages to make the somewhat over-the-top final moments watchable, if not quite believable.

This poignant and graceful doomed-love weeper deals with a facet of American history rarely explored. In a beautifully restrained performance, Barbara Stanwyck plays a Daughter of the American Revolution who marries gentle German immigrant Otto Kruger. Upon the outbreak of the First World War, they become victimized by anti-German sentiments.

With tasteful understatement and an unusual attention to period detail, director Archie L. Mayo paints a vivid tableau of social intolerance that must have been quite daring in its time (the scars of the Great War were still fresh in '33). The writers, unfortunately, couldn't resist a nosedive into Mata Hari-like spy machinations, an eleventh hour plot contrivance that strikes an indelicate note. Even so, the film's quiet sensitivity stays with you long after.

With Ralph Bellamy (as the inevitable jilted boyfriend), Ruth Donnelly, Laura Hope Crews, and Clara Blandick.

Ever in My Heart (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Surprising powerful and effective drama from Warner has Otto Kruger playing Hugo Wilbrandt, a German man who comes to live in New England where he's accepted into American society and eventually marries Mary Archer (Barbara Stanwyck), a woman from a proud American family. All is well for the couple and their young son until WWI breaks out and soon they find themselves subject to many who now can't accept their ties to Germany. There's no question that this was made on the budget of a "B" movie but at the same time you can tell that the studio, directors, actors and writers cared so much about the subject and every inch of the film bleeds a certain love that you can't help but get caught up in their story, feel the pain of the family and at times breathe a bit of hatred for those treating the family in such a bad way. It's funny to think that at one time filmmakers were ripped apart for showing any type of sympathy towards the German people but I guess after ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, filmmakers were allowed to show things differently. It's funny that this movie tries to show the evils of what some Americans did while back in the days that this story actually took place Hollywood were turning out all sorts of propaganda, which probably helped fuel the fire of many Americans. With that said, this is an extremely powerful movie at times and this is especially true in a couple scenes that once you see you'll unlikely to ever forget. I'm not going to directly spoil either one of them but one happens with Kruger in bed with his son and the other happens at the end. Both are so true in their emotions that you're rather shocked to see the filmmakers be brave enough to show them. The performances are certainly a major plus with Kruger turning in one of the best performances I've seen from him. He was always a great character actor but he really shines in the leading role here. I always say being able to act with your eyes is a very difficult thing to do but I was constantly watching Kruger's eyes, which said so much during the various important parts of the film. Stanwyck is also extremely good in her role of the wife who finds your life falling apart when just months before it was perfect. The supporting cast includes nice work by the always reliable Ralph Bellamy and Ruth Donnelly is good as the housekeeper. EVER IN MY HEART lasts just under 70- minutes and one would think that wouldn't be enough time to really get deep into the serious subject matter but it actually works out perfectly because the mind frames of people in this country turned on a dime back when the war started and I think the film, running as fast as it does, did a terrific job showing this.