"Your memory has followed me day and night, like a shadow."
As sympathetic a portrayal of adultery as I think you're going to see, obviously only possible pre-Code, and with a fine performance from Irene Dunne. She plays a character who helps tend to an emergency with her sister one day, and is thus too late to meet a man (John Boles) and his mother in the park, losing her chance to become his fiancée. They've met each other too late, you see, and he continues on with his plan to marry the woman he's engaged to. Flash forward five years and they meet again, becoming lifelong lovers despite his marriage. She gives up her career to be set up in an apartment close to him, a "kept woman," frustrated at times by only getting a slice of his time, but so deeply in love that she stays with him, despite the attentions of a decent, kind guy who's always been crazy about her (George Meeker).
It's a little tough to see just how much Dunne's character sublimates her own life for her lover, as devoted as a puppy dog, but it was refreshing to see the affair not portrayed moralistically, and the two of them as protagonists we empathize with (well, her more than him, but still). Of course, it's an overly idealistic scenario for such an affair: the two are genuinely in love and not doing it because of some damage in their lives, the wife never finds out, and Dunne's character, while sad at times, is content to be the mistress and doesn't create trouble for him. She's certainly not in it for the money, accepting only what's needed to get by. Later in life, we get moral outrage from his adult son directed at both of them, but when the chips are down, he's incredibly kind to her. In the years of the Production Code his moral outrage would have been that of Joseph Breen, and he would never have extended such sympathy. There is tragedy in the story, but it's the natural tragedy of life, not moral comeuppance for having sinned.
At the same time, the film is a cautionary tale about the emotional toll of such an arrangement, and the message seems to be directed more at women than men. In an odd bit of drama, a neighbor has an explosion in her kitchen and is set on fire. As Dunne's character tends to her and consoles her with the fact that her husband will surely nurse her back to health, the other woman confides in her that the man she's seen around isn't really her husband - he's married and carrying on an affair with her, just as in the main storyline. The point is to show that in such an emergency, such a relationship is a disaster, and she will lie there, lonely.
The early voice of wisdom in the film is her father (Paul Weigel), who tells her "I wouldn't fiddle around waiting for something better than Kurt, when it's just like life to hand you something worse. Kurt is a fine, steady boy. He won't ever surprise you maybe, but don't you care. The trouble with most marriages is they've got too many surprises."
We also have the subplot with her sister Freda (June Clyde), who has come into sexual maturity and thinks it's a pathway to marriage. "Say, mama, Katie Shendler says you can make a man marry you if you..." she says, before getting slapped in the face. Later, it's clear she's had some kind of physical relations with a guy named Hugo and he plans to leave town, making her suicidal. This is the emergency that Dunne's sister sticks around for, to force Hugo into staying, causing her to miss the meeting in the park. We do find out later that Freda did indeed marry Hugo and is now raising a family, clearly the "right path" in the eyes of the film.
Irene Dunne is marvelous here, as we see her strength in fending off unwanted advances from men early on, her flirtation and joy ("Paris always brings out the beast in you"), and her sadness, like those tears in her eyes when her lover goes off to Europe, played with perfect restraint. Director John M. Stahl is mostly workmanlike in telling the story, but does get in a fantastic zoom out shot when she's standing there at the pavilion while the crowd disperses, and he's not there. Also, look for that funny little bit in the beginning, where before Prohibition, the family, including three kids, are all drinking beer.
Lastly, another nice quote from the father:
"Ever since I can remember, the younger generation has been 'going to the dogs,' yet somehow it always manages to come out on top."
