Jane Wyman

Cary Scott is an affluent widow in the town of Stoningham, in suburban New England, whose social life revolves around the weekend visits of her college-age son and daughter, her best friend's country-club activities, and a few men vying for her affection. Feeling stuck in a rut, she becomes interested in Ron Kirby, her arborist. He is an intelligent, down-to-earth, and respectful, yet passionate, younger man, and she discovers he is content with his simple life outside the materialistic society in which they live. Ron introduces Cary to his friends, who seem to have no need for wealth or status, and their exuberance provides a welcome contrast to her staid existence. Ron and Cary fall in love, and Ron proposes. Cary accepts, but she has concerns about the viability of their relationship, due to their different ages, classes, and lifestyles. These concerns are magnified when she tells her children and friends about the engagement and is met with a solid wall of disapproval, and, eventually, she breaks up with Ron. Particularly influential in her change of mind are her children's protestations against Cary's plan to sell the family home and move to Ron's tree nursery, as they will not want to visit her there. After spending most of the Christmas season alone, Cary misses her life with Ron, but she thinks she has missed her opportunity for happiness because she mistakenly believes Ron is seeing another woman. On Christmas, her daughter announces she will be getting married soon and her son says that, since he is likely going to study abroad and then work overseas, they should start thinking about selling their house, which is too big for just Cary. She is overwhelmed by how pointless her sacrifice was, and her spirits are not lifted when her children give her a television set to fill her empty life. Cary goes to see a doctor about recurrent headaches she has started having, and he suggests they are being caused by her body punishing her for ending her relationship with Ron. Leaving the appointment, she runs into one of Ron's friends, and in the course of their conversation she learns that Ron is still single. She goes to his property, but then changes her mind and leaves. Ron sees her from a precipice and excitedly, though unsuccessfully, tries to get her attention. The ground collapses out from under him, and he falls off the cliff. That night, Ron's friend tells Cary about the accident, and she hurries over to his house. She decides she no longer wants to allow other people to dictate how she lives her life and settles in to nurse Ron back to health. When Ron regains consciousness, Cary tells him that she has come home.

A rich playboy whose recklessness inadvertently causes the death of a prominent doctor tries to make amends to his widow, and falls for her in the process. When churlish, spoiled rich man Bob Merrick foolishly wrecks his speed boat, the rescue team resuscitates him with equipment that's therefore unavailable to aid a local hero, Dr. Wayne Phillips, who dies as a result. Phillips had helped many people, and when Merrick learns Phillips' secret, to give selflessly and in secret, he tries it in a ham-handed way. The result further alienates Phillips' widow, Helen, with whom Merrick has fallen in love. Merrick's persistence causes another tragedy, and he must remake his life, including going back to medical school, in an attempt to make amends and win her love. —<jhailey@hotmail.com>

In this 1953 remake of the the 1937 film "The Awful Truth," Jane Wyman and Ray Milland play Constance and Gary Hart, a New York show-biz couple. She's a singer and dancer and he's a songwriter. But he's also a philanderer and she turns the tables on him by pretending to spend the night with their friend Courtney (Tom Helmore), an older (and sexually ambiguous) male friend. Constance is furious at Gary. She wants a husband who's "there" for her. But no sooner does she throw Gary out, than he becomes constantly underfoot, hanging around their apartment songwriting on his old piano that's too big to remove without taking out the window. Maybe she doesn't want a man who's really "there" after all? After all, she does sing a song called "Taking a Slow Burn Over A Fast Man" about being in love with a heel. Constance files for divorce and they both fall into dissatisfying single lifestyles. Constance finds herself living a spinsterish life with her maid Nelly, who lovingly tucks a hot water bottle in a needlepoint pillow and pops it in her bed each night before she goes home. Gary's also leading a superficial bachelor life at the Sherry-Netherland with his valet. Both enter into imperfect relationships: Gary is dating an elegant socialite, Deborah Randolph (Karin Booth). Constance still spends time with the dapper Courtney, but we know he's not really interested in her sexually. A younger man, Frank (Aldo Ray), a uranium millionaire from Alaska, and a longtime admirer of Constance's, arranges to meet her at a backer's audition for Courtney's new show, and immediately goes after her. But is he really the dull guy Constance thinks she's looking for? He likes a night on the town and does a mean "Cuban Mambo" on the dance floor. Also in the picture is Lilly Adair (played by famed dancer Valerie Bettis), a rather outrageously sexual singer-dancer at an upper-crust nightclub, where Gary runs into Constance and Frank, "by chance." There, Lilly performs a song "I Long for Love the Jungle Way," suggesting that it's a lack of physicality that's at the bottom of Gary and Constance's marital problems. Although wooing Constance, Frank's fascination with Lilly is evident. Gary, having discovered that Constance had only pretended to spend the night with Courtney to get back at him, wakes her up with a song he wrote called "Let's Do It Again." He wants her back. But in the meantime, Courtney proposes to Constance in her bedroom (even though he swore he would never get married), so that she'll stay in her "own world." Gary, ready to reconcile, comes back to the apartment. Constance tries to hide Courtney, but he's discovered when Gary accidentally puts on Courtney's larger hat by accident. Could this mean that despite his asexuality towards women, Courtney is more of a man than Gary? They get into a fist fight in Constance's bedroom and Frank comes to visit, ready to take Constance home to meet his parents in Seattle. Their relationship ends, but Constance was never really committed to Frank anyhow. Gary, who for a city slicker is amazingly naive about Courtney's sexual disinterest in Constance, goes back to Deborah with a vengeance. Constance puts on a sexy, wedding style outfit on the day their divorce decree becomes final. Gary wants her signature for permission to take the window out of the apartment so he can move his piano. She wants to get back together with him. She opens a huge bottle of champagne in the kitchen, closes the blinds and turns out the lights. But Deborah calls just as Constance pops the cork and Gary pretends he's with his sister. Gary gives Constance a rude brush-off. But Constance fights back; pretending to be Gary's sister, she calls Deborah and has her arrange a party at Gary's hotel suite. Not only that, Deborah's parents are in town to meet Gary. The only parents mentioned in this film are Frank and Deborah's; it suggests that that even though they're in touch with their sexuality in a way that Gary and Constance aren't, neither of them are truly adults. Constance brazenly enters the party pretending to be Gary's sister. Like Irene Dunne in "The Awful Truth," she's wonderfully trashy. She does a mean imitation of Lilly, and we hear "I Long For Love The Jungle Way" a second time, this time sung by Constance. Deborah's parents and the rest of the guests leave in disgust. Deborah throws in the towel, saying to Gary that Constance must really still love him. Frank and Lilly end up getting together--after all, they're emotional equals. Gary wants Constance to stay at the hotel with him, but she runs back to her apartment in tears. Nelly's waiting with the hot water bottle. And Constance is not so distraught that she can't put on one last beautiful outfit, a white negligee that evokes a wedding night. Nelly leaves and Gary bangs on the bedroom door. Constance's weeping and clutching the hot water bottle that symbolizes her solitary female life. She has a chance at the husband she thought she always wanted, one who will be always there. She lets Gary in and they passionately embrace. The film ends with needlepointed hot water bottle discarded on the floor. It's tossed aside for now, but it's still in the couple's bedroom. This suggests that their marital problems are not quite over. Constance is going to have to give up more than Frank to make this marriage work. "Let's Do It Again," maybe because it's a remake, is thematically more of a thirties or early forties film than a fifties one. Constance wants a steady husband, but she's not interested in being a housewife. She has no interest in giving up her career or having children. Ray Milland is serviceable in this film as Gary, but he's no Cary Grant. This makes Constance's choices more problematic than Lucy's in The Awful Truth. But he probably helps foot the bill for her drop-dead wardrobe. Constance appears in one beautiful outfit after another throughout the film; that New York apartment must have a lot of closet space. Jane Wyman is Irene Dunne's equal in this remake. As the years go on, Wyman has become overly identified with the dull, virtuous women she played in Douglas Sirk's films. It's nice to see her let loose here and it reminds us that she was also a great comic actress.

Foreign correspondent Pete Garvey has 5 days to win back his former fiancée, or he'll lose the orphans he adopted. Pete Garvey, foreign correspondent, has been running an impromptu adoption agency for war orphans in Paris, when an ultimatum from his erstwhile fiancée Emmadel Jones draws him back to Boston, complete with two adopted orphans to melt her heart. Too late! She's now engaged to rich, handsome Wilbur Stanley. And if Pete's not married within five days, he loses the kids. He'll have to work fast... —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

After missing his train for a weekend getaway, an alcoholic writer goes on a four-day drinking bout which could well be his last.