BACK STREET (1932)

In Cincinnati during, as we are told, the good old days before Prohibition, Irene Dunne is a footloose and fancy-free young woman who works at her family's store by day and hangs out at Over the Rhine, a fancy beer garden, in the evenings, engaging in innocent flirtations. George Meeker, who has a bicycle shop but loves tinkering with cars, is in love with her, and her father suggests that, even if she isn't in love with him, she could settle for him and not hold out for something better that may never come along. At a train station, Dunne meets John Boles, a handsome, well-to-do man visiting town because he is engaged to a local girl. Sparks fly between the two, and soon Boles is ready to give up his intended and make a life with Dunne. Boles arranges for her to meet his mother at a bandstand concert, but just as Dunne is leaving for the park, her sister confesses that she is "in trouble" and suicidal because her boyfriend is about to leave town. Though Dunne says her appointment at the bandstand may be the most important moment of her life, she gives in and agrees to talk sense into the boyfriend, and therefore misses meeting Boles and his mother by mere moments. Five years later, Dunne is a working girl in New York City and has a chance meeting on Wall Street with Boles. He's married with children, but sparks fly again and soon they are deep into a passionate affair. He sets her up in an apartment and they live for their stolen moments. She realizes she has become a "backstreet wife," always to live in the shadows of Boles' married life. At one point, Dunne hooks up with Meeker, now a success in the auto business, and even goes so far as to return to Cincinnati to marry him, but Boles follows her and she cannot deny her feelings for him still remain, so she breaks it off with Meeker and goes back to New York to resume her backstreet life.

This is a well-made, well-acted example of the suffering woman melodrama. I have tended to avoid these over the years—I remember liking ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, not liking RANDOM HARVEST--but this one, as an early pre-Code example of this plotline, was worth seeing. (It's been remade twice but I'm not rushing to catch those.) In a way, despite the romantic masochism Dunne gives into, it's kind of a story of female empowerment; Dunne is (at least in the first half) an independent working woman, and the choices she makes along the way are made with her eyes open, and with Boles being honest about his situation. No spoiler here, but the ending is particularly interesting in the way that Boles' son sort of comes around to at least sympathizing with Dunne's situation. Dunne is very good, and Boles is OK—I don't see what about him, either physically or personally, drives Dunne so strongly to sacrifice so much to remain by his side, romantically if not physically. William Bakewell, as Boles' son, is strong in the final scenes. ZaZu Pitts has what amounts to an amusing cameo, and Jane Darwell has the small role of Dunne's stepmother. I like that the bandstand moment remains a sad touchstone in Dunne's life; it’s a resonant moment that feels real. [TCM]