Never Say Goodbye

Although Jerry Hopper is the credited director of "Never Say Goodbye", Douglas Sirk oddly goes unrecognized as the co-director. Though Sirk's presence can be felt at times, "Never Say Goodbye" lacks the visual irony and heaving drama of his greatest films. Nonetheless, this is a beautifully-acted, handsomely-crafted affair, with a lush Frank Skinner score and some climactic melodrama thrown in for good measure. Part war romance, part domestic drama, "Never Say Goodbye" is an interesting hybrid that actually works.

Rock Hudson plays a military doctor who falls in love with nightclub pianist, Cornell Borchers. They marry and have a baby and all seems right. That is, until Hudson's seething jealousy wrecks everything that they had established. Tragedy tears the couple apart and Hudson must raise their daughter alone. Years later, fate brings the couple back together and their daughter(played surprisingly well by a young Shelley Fabares)must come to grips with the mother she had never known. The always good George Sanders is sorely underused as the man who blames Hudson for the entire ordeal.

"Never Say Goodbye" has its heavy-handed moments for sure. And you just might roll your eyes at how quickly and cleanly the ending gets wrapped up. But the action gets rolling almost from scene one and it turns out to be a satisfying, if unmemorable, nugget of 1950's soap opera. Uinversal-International continues to churn out the glossy fluff with this one.

Undistinctive but enjoyable tearjerker: American doctor loves/loses/finds Vienna nightclub entertainer. The skillful screenplay mixes motherhood, medicine and the Iron Curtain, plus manages a few provocative digs at American male behavior. Rock Hudson and George Sanders give appealing performances. In the central role, German actress Cornell Borchers looks like Ingrid Bergman but lacks her warmth. A rich supporting cast includes a bit by Clint Eastwood . Old-fashioned, but done with some dignity.

This is a beautiful color film which many might classify as a '"woman's picture". However, it has three very fine performances by Rock Hudson, George Sanders and Cornell Borchers, very good supporting actors and a moving storyline told from the point of view of the male participant. So it is a romance, a dramatic film, and a frankly superior "tear-jerker" all rolled into one. The storyline is fairly straightforward. Michael Parker, a doctor, married a German girl and lost her during WWII, having to go on while thinking she is dead. She reenters his life in the US with an old friend as escort, one who blames him for what she had to suffer. She wants to get back together with Parker, but first has to win over his daughter who idolizes the mother she has never known; finally, the escort, an artist, draws the little girl a picture of her mother, and seeing it, the little girl learns who is her real mother accepts her joyfully. The film was written from a Luigi Pirandello play, and the final version of the screenplay was done by Charles Hoffman. The cast is an unusually good one. Directed by Jerry Hopper, it also features Ray Collins, David Janssen, Casey Adams, Jerry Paris, John Banner, Robert F. Simon, Helen Wallace, Frank Wilcox and many others. The remarkable fact of the production is the realism of its motivations and reactions; it is never glossy, never cheap, often very moving. Shelley Fabares as the stubborn little girl is quite good also. But lovely Cornell Borchers and suave George Sanders are the best actors in this solid film. The technical production is very good, for any era. Sets by Russell A Gausman and Julia Heron, music by Frank Skinner, Bill Thomas's costumes and hairstyles by Joan St. Oegger plus makeup by Bud Westmore insured that this was to be an expensive-looking ad beautiful finished product. This is an appealing story, which qualifies as a wartime film also, one partly told in interesting flashbacks; it has never been appreciated for what it avoided becoming nor for what it was made to be--a very fine story about people whose lives were torn asunder by war...

Although widely acknowledged that parts of "Never Say Goodbye" were directed by Douglas Sirk, the credit is given to Jerry Hopper with no mention of Sirk at all. Filmographies of Sirk's work most often do not include this work.

"Never Say Goodbye" has many of the hallmarks of Sirk's work, though is much lacking in the biting social criticism that elevated his finest work. Like "Interlude" this is pure melodrama, filmed with style but ultimately forgettable.

Rock Hudson and George Sanders turn in predictably solid performances but it is Cornell Borchers an Ingrid Bergman Greta Garbo hybrid, who manages to bring a sense of truth to the more than unlikely drama, which is essential for the melodrama's success.

While obviously not in the class of the major Sirk melodrama's there is enough here of interest to followers of his work.

German film star Cornell Borchers stars with Rock Hudson in this Fifties romance of love and sacrifice Never Say Goodbye. Who would have thought that George Sanders would not be a cad in a film.

Hudson plays an army doctor in post war Europe awaiting home and discharge and he runs into Borchers and Sanders in a nightclub. He and Borchers marry and they have a kid who grows up to be Shelley Fabares. But the way she and Sanders keep hanging around together arouses the old green eyed monster in Rock. He confronts her and she takes off behind the Iron Curtain in post war Vienna where who knows she might have run into Harry Lime.

Fast forward to the present being 1956. Borchers and Sanders are in Los Angeles doing their club act and she runs into Hudson who has told his daughter that her mother was dead. After this the film becomes positively weepy.

I won't say more, but everybody here becomes positively noble and noble does not wear well on George Sanders.

Never Say Goodbye was what was termed a woman's picture back in the day and for those who are inclined to these type films this one is for you. Look fast and you'll see Clint Eastwood as one of Rock's medical colleagues.

Douglas Sirk guided Rock through a few of these kinds of films in their salad days. But Sirk knew enough to keep his hands off this.