My Reputation

Barbara Stanwyck gets a "10" vote for her performance. She is incredibly skilled and she delivers beyond description.

The cinematography is wonderful (esp. firelight scenes). It rates a "10". The classy, orchestrated musical score doesn't rate a "10" but is perfect for this movie.

Fine supporting acting. The old actress who portrays Stanwyck's mom is terrific in a very unsympathetic role. Her stodginess provides a rock-hard theme throughout the film. Even the child actors are all very good. Eve Arden- excellent.

Brent is a problem. I can't figure out how he can do such a poor job in a role that he practically patented. Who better to hire for the "George Brent" role than THE George Brent? For some reason he just seems uninterested in this film project. The ending of the film is also problematic. It includes a well-staged interior scene with her sons and beautifully filmed train station scenes, but the script at this point becomes truncated and slapdash.

This movie is definitely on my "recommend" list due to Stanwyck's outstanding work. It has many good qualities that make it watchable, but is dragged down to an overall "7" due to only two negatives- Brent's lack of effort, and the unsatisfying ending.

A young widow is criticized for trying to build a new life in "My Reputation," a 1946 film starring Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Lucile Watson, and Eve Arden. Some time after Stanwyck's husband dies from a protracted illness, the lonely and devastated woman goes on a skiing trip and meets an army major, played by George Brent. She falls in love with him, but gossip circulates about her and affects two sons.

The film is dated, but Stanwyck is wonderful in an emotional role of a woman who all her life was cowed by her mother's ideas of convention and always afraid to stand up for herself. Brent is okay as her leading man, but if he was supposed to be this love 'em and leave 'em type, he didn't pull it off. He seems too staid. Eve Arden has a small role that perhaps was cut down - she has very little to do and disappears for the last half of the film. It's strange because she seemed to be encouraging the relationship, but why isn't she present to come to Jessica's defense? It's the same crowd of friends, so it's odd that she's missing.

This is an entertaining film with an excellent performance by Stanwyck.

An ideal script for Douglas Sirk, charting the emotional liberation of a widow, but filmed without Douglas Sirk. Instead, Curtis Bernhardt commands a lush postwar production: the $5000 limits on set construction were lifted, and it shows. Extras crowd the screen, even in modest scenes, plus James Wong Howe contributes rich low-key lighting, Max Steiner produces an expressive [if undistinctive] score, and Edith Head whips up tasteful costumes. Bernhardt works best in the big scenes, but misjudges some of the lighter moments and cannot light a fire under his leading man, George Brent at his most stolid. Still, there's much to enjoy here: thoughtful dialogue, the stylized upper-crust social milieu, and expert performances, including an unusually sensitive one from Barbara Stanwyck. However, that slight [but crucial] ironic distance of Sirk is sorely missed.

My Reputation (1946)

This comes at the real peak of Barbara Stanwyck's career, a couple of years after her now most famous film, "Double Indemnity." And she's terrific, playing from the first minute a widow who now has to put her life back together, all with the equally terrific Lucile Watson as her strong willed mother. There is also the dependable Eve Arden as a sidekick, not so different than Joan Crawford's in "Mildred Pierce," and the perfectly cast Jerome Cowan as a suitor who moves in on her before she has quite realized she's a widow. Eventually the stellar cast is filled in by George Brent, ever stable and likable…with his inevitable appeal to the main character.

So this is a great 1940s drama, filled with deep sentiments, tight friendships, distraught characters who need more than they can ever get, and rays of hope. It fits the needs of an audience which was filled with women recently widowed, either literally or figuratively with men returning from the war not ready to be the men they were before going away. It is 1946, after all, a giant tipping point in American social life.

Do you want more reasons to love this movie? The music is by the legendary Max Steiner (who scored "Gone with the Wind" for starters). And the cinematography is by the superb James Wong Howe (who shot the stunning "Sweet Smell of Success").

What slows the film down at all is plain old chemistry—Brent is not a convincing leading man, for me, and he and Stanwyck don't seem capable of really smoking on screen. The plot does imply a formality at first, and so it makes sense as far as that goes. But eventually we are meant to feel both characters in their loneliness, and their longing for each other. The war literally comes into play, and it must of struck painful chords in many.

One of the more interesting aspects is the problem of a widow dating a new man with the eyes of her friends and neighbors watching, and disapproving of, her every move, reaching the point of scandal for no reason. I'm sure the point of the movie is partly to push that point, so the world would be be more understanding. There is a huge scene at a party, just before the new couple rushes to Chicago for a dramatic New Year's Eve.

So imagine a vividly photographed, highly emotional drama that fit into the needs of the times perfectly. Does the movie rise to its intentions—quite well, very intelligently, yes. I say see it, and you'll find many things to love.

MY REPUTATION was one of several pictures produced by Warner Bros. during World War II and then held back for release. Others included THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN (filmed in 41, released in 44) and ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (filmed in 41, released in 44). MY REPUTATION was filmed in 1943 and released for military use in 1944. The Tower Books photoplay edition of the original novel, "Instruct My Sorrow," was published in 1945. The film was finally released to the public in 1946. The military prints and theatrical release prints carry two completely different sets of main titles. There is no difference in footage or scenes between the two release versions.