Adieu pour toujours

This is the book Barbara Stanwyck reads to the little boy in the movie. I actually had a copy of it. I only remember Sambo was black and there were a lot of pancakes.

The book was banned some time during my childhood for being racist. I just checked Amazon it's still out there - tons of different publications apparently somehow cleaned up.

I bring this up as a point of interest.

That out of the way, Always Goodbye stars Stanwyck, Herbert Marshall, Ian Hunter, and Lynn Bari.

Stanwyck plays a woman whose fiancé dies in an accident just as they are about to be married. She is pregnant at the time, and gives her child up.

Well, I don't have to tell you what happens.

Stanwick is lovely. Cesar Romero is annoying as a man who chases every woman he meets, and Lynn Bari is very uppity as the fiancé of the boy's adoptive father whose wife is deceased.

Stanwyck has played much stronger roles. I felt like this was a waste of her talent.

The child, Johnnie Russell, is still alive. He went into a he foreign service and at one point served as Ambassador to Oman.

In Always Goodbye we see Stanwyck create a character that is softer than the more hard-bitten characters she will later become best known for, and she does a great job and is thoroughly enjoyable here. Unfortunately, the film and script (which may have even been dated back in 1938) doesn't hold up nearly as well. It seemed to go on for much longer than it's tidy 75 minutes run time would suggest. Cesar Romero plays a character that brings some pleasant levity to the proceedings but at the same time one can't help but feel that he lays it on just a little too thick. The rest of the supporting cast is fine but mostly forgettable.

This movie is clearly one you must suspend all sense of disbelief in order to enjoy it. This isn't saying it's a bad film....I actually liked it. But it has a plot that certainly is far-fetched!

When the film begins, Margot (Barbara Stanwyck) is waiting for her fiancé to arrive at the marriage license bureau. However, as she's waiting he's killed in a traffic accident right in front of her!!! To make things worse, she's pregnant*! So you next see her about to kill herself when she is caught by Jim (Herbert Marshall) and he takes her under his wing and gets her back on her feet. He also helps her find a nice adoptive couple when her baby arrives months later. But although Jim is marvelous, he has a real wandering spirit and is sometimes gone for years on his sea travels.

In the meantime, while Jim is off on one of his voyages, Margot gets a job with a fashion studio and her life is really going well. In fact, soon a crazy Count, Gino (Caesar Romero), is chasing her and proposing marriage. He's a nice guy...just a bit full of himself.

Soon after, she sees an adorable kid in a hotel and realizes this boy is her biological son she gave up years ago! So, when she learns he's going on a cruise, she arranges to go on the same ship and soon the two become inseparable. But there is a huge problem-- the boy's mother has died and the woman his father (Ian Hunter) wants to marry is just awful and cares nothing for the boy....Margot's baby! So what's she to do and who is she to marry when THREE guys all pop the question?!

Thi is an enjoyable film mostly because although far-fetched, the acting is quite good and the story engaging. Well worth seeing, though it is one of Stanwyck's lesser-known films.

Barbara Stanwyck stars in this what was termed back in the day, a woman's picture. Always Goodbye is a remake of Ann Harding's Gallant Lady and it has Stanwyck giving up her infant son for adoption rather than trying to raise him as a single parent. That was simply not done back in the day of The Code.

Herbert Marshall arranges the adoption of the infant to his friend Ian Hunter and wife who have been childless for years. Marshall saved Stanwyck from doing herself in. He even arranges for her to get a job in the fashion industry working for Binnie Barnes. As you can imagine the latest in Thirties fashion is worn here. If this were done over at MGM Joan Crawford would have had this part for sure.

While on a buying trip to Paris, Barbara makes the acquaintance of Cesar Romero who provides a lot of the comedy in this film. He also gets a chance to show off his dancing ability which is considerable. Before films Romero was a dance instructor. She also runs into little Johnny Russell who turns out to be her son.

I think you can see where this is going and I will say while it's not the greatest of Stanwyck films it is certainly nicely done. Barbara's best scenes in the film are with little Master Russell. She doesn't let the kid steal them from her either.

In the end STanwyck has to make some critical choices. And finds out that you cannot always have your own way all the time.

A remake of the 1933 film Gallant Lady, directed by Gregory La Cava, starring Ann Harding and Clive Brook. Somebody must have thought that the work needed an upgrade, with bigger stars, such as Barbara Stanwick and Herbert Marshall. Directed by Sidney Lanfield, this new version has everything to be a success: a good cast, a trip to Paris, the glamour of American and Parisian fashion. But it continues to be a melodrama about maternal love and how a mother sacrifices everything to be with her child.

It is curious to see Barbara Stanwick, an actress who has forever been associated with femme fatale and male manipulator roles, playing a loving mother, fighting for her son's love.

Too melodramatic for my taste, it can nevertheless be enjoyed by many, for precisely the same reasons.