Le voile bleu

This melodrama is now dated as hell.It is a mushy movie,a tear-jerker,the French cinema at its kitschest.A woman,who's lost her husband during the war and her son,sacrifices her life to the others' children. Gaby Morlay's nanny is Petainist moral flesh on the bone:woman was born to be a mother and to raise a family or else she's got to be a laywoman-nun.

Around her ,all the families are selfish,bourgeois and they do not care about their children.But this angel on earth,who takes abnegation to new limits,will suffer humiliations,scorn,indifference and ingratitude from the parents whose offspring she loves as her own flesh.

SPOILERSµµµµµµSPOILERS The final with its incredible climax is guaranteed to send the impressionable tearing through an entire box of Kleenex:the poor nurse,in the hospital, is saved by one of her former little boys,now a doctor.For Xmas,the young man gathers all her " children" for a feast and he proudly announces that his old nanny will take care of HIS brats. Curtain.

American remake in 1951,by Curtis Bernardt,Jane Wyman taking on Morlay's part.