West Point Widow

Underated Anne Shirley leads this movie with her usual charm and wit. The title does not adequately describe the premise of this story. Two young people (Anne Shirley and Richard Denning) marry. The man, a West Point cadet, can not be married as a cadet, so they agree to have the marriage annulled, via the intervention of his mother. Nancy Hill (Shirley) has a baby girl but doesn't tell her former husband, Lt. Rhody Graves (Carlson) so that he will not drop out of West Point. Meanwhile, while working in a hospital as a nurse to support their child, she meets and eventually falls for Dr. Jimmy Krueger (Richard Carlson). This is only after much effort on his part.

With a wonderful supporting cast, particularly Richard Carlson (Dr. Jimmy Krueger) as the young intern and persistent suitor and Lillian Randolph (Sophie) as the babies caregiver, Anne Shirley does not fail to shine and charm in her performance as the long-suffering wife, girlfirtend, nurse, and young mother. Ms. Shirley is one of our most underrated young actresses of Hollywood's golden era, whose career unfortunately never lived up to her vast talents. To better understand this, her performance as the Barbara Stanwycks's daughter Laurel in the movie Stella Dallas (1937), is clear proof of her amazing acting talents.

Anne Shirley got married to Richard Denning. But he was bound for West Point, where married cadets are not permitted, So Denning's mother, Janet Beecher, persuaded Miss Shirley to an annulment. Now she's a nurse at a New York City Hospital, where Richard Carlson is a doctor. He's in love with her and discovers she has a baby; she never told Denning because he would have done the right thing, and ruined his career, and she never told his mother, because she would have told him.

It's far too sentimental a movie to appeal to me, and director Robert Siodmak couldn't find enough in the script to bring out anything of interest. Sentimental romcoms were not his forte, and this is definitely programmer material. Siodmak would find his metier the next year, and Miss Shirley's career would end with her second marriage. With Franes Gifford, Maude Eburne, Lilian Randolph, and Cecil Kellaway.