NO MAN OF HER OWN (1950)

Movie Review from ElCriticon-AlohaCriticon

Great movie by Mitchell Leisen who also made so estimable films as Midnight, Easy Living or Hold Back The Dawn. This time he combines intrigue and sentimental drama in order to adapt a story based on a book by Cornell Woolrich entitled I Married a Dead Man.

Maternity, the role of morals, family, the feeling of blame or referral, all these concepts concentrated in the event of a white lie, are handled in this melodrama with features of film noir.

The lie used by Helen/Barbara Stanwyck in order to help her son to have a better future, Helen`s mother lie in order to save her daughter from punishment, the silence of Helen´s brother in order to not to harm his mother nor Helen… This chain of silence, lies, agony and blackmail is assembled in an skillful way by Leisen inspite of the narrative tension decreases in the second part of the movie and the excess of off narration.

No Man Of Her Own is a very advisable film that has a fault: the enormous interpretative capacity of Barbara Stanwyck, one of the best actress in Hollywood cinema, does not find her male role counterpart, a limp and hieratic John Lund.

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