Back Street

This is one of Irene Dunne's finest performances and proves that even a soapbox opera can be engaging when a performance is so real it's uncanny. Her performance is almost overshadowed by the humaness and irony of the plot. I highly recommend this movie.

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.

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.

At our recent film society screening of this film (we very luckily have a 16mm print in The National Film and Sound Archive here in Australia) it was very apparent of the skill of director and his star in what is an subtle and underplayed telling of this Fannie Hurst tearjerker. There is an absence of musical underscore very typical for the period prior to 1934, and this added to the potency of the effect of Dunne's absorbing and masterful performance, illustrating her as not just a star but an actress as well. Overall this film has a very gentle feel with slow fade-outs used frequently in giving this effect. Dunne is wonderful in her playing earlier in a lighter fashion and makes a skillful transformation into the section of the film where she is older and more serious. I had sympathy for her character in spite of the sacrifices she makes for John Boles, remaining in the "back street" of his life. I see director Stahl as a sort of predecessor to Sirk in his handling of solid fare such as this and "Leave her to Heaven" (1945).

I have seen the later versions that were done of this movie, and none compare to this one. Irene Dunne is superb, and brings a lot of depth to her role...you really get to care about her character, and sympathize with her plight.

Only saw this movie once on television years ago, and have not seen it aired since. As far as I can tell, this 1932 movie is not available on tape or dvd at the present time...a real shame, for it certainly needs to be!