NORA PRENTISS

US, 1947, 111 minutes, Black and white.
Ann Sheridan, Kent Smith, Robert Alda, Bruce Bennett, Wanda Hendrix.
Directed by Vincent Sherman.

A Hollywood melodrama of the thirties and forties. Crisp black and white photography, San Francisco settings, the world of the wealthy, and of doctors contrasting with tile sleazier world of nightclubs and gambling form the staple of the downfall of a respectable man for love of a singer.

Ann Sheridan is glamorous as the heroine - soft-hearted and devoted to the man she drags away from an unloving wife. Kent Smith has quite a good role as the prim doctor who rebels against conventions. Direction is by Vincent Sherman who made such films as Harriet Craig and The Young Philadelphians.

1. How enjoyable a romantic story, melodrama? For what audience was it made? The popularity of this kind of entertainment in the thirties and the forties? how perennial the interest in such romance stories?

2. The soap opera genres and their conventions? The usual conventions in this film, differences? The hero and his ordinary way of life, his socialite and uncommunicative wife, devoted children? The break in his routine? His realisation about the primness of his life? His letting himself go into temptation, his downfall? The singer in the nightclub with the heart of gold and devoted to him? Doctors, police, nightclub proprietors?

3. Black and white photography, San Francisco locations, score?

4. The flashback technique: Talbot disguising himself at the beginning and not speaking? The significance of the flashbacks in the light of his being in prison? Emotional response to him at his trial and imprisonment? now credible was the plot sufficient for this kind of melodrama? The plight of the respectable middle-aged man and the brittle marriage? The love for the opposite kind of woman from his wife? The joy in his love for this woman? his readiness to sacrifice himself for her? The devotion of the woman? how realistic, how contrived?

5. The character of Richard Talbot? Presenting him with his family and his relationships with them, his punctuality, his high demands in his work? His strengths? The inevitable weaknesses? his response to the accident and meeting Nora, his infatuation, going to the club? his taking her out, going to the cabin? The affair and its repercussions on him? The operation and its almost failure? His impulse to take the identity of the dead man, the destruction of the body and the power? Life in New York and its constraints, his drinking, his bashing, the nightclub proprietor? The irony of his arrest, trial, his willingness to accept guilt? His satisfaction that his wife did not recognize him? How credible the nobility in letting his family go, in taking blame? in giving up Nora?

6. Ann Sheridan as Nora Prentiss? The conventional nightclub singer, bashed around in life, hard? Her coming on strongly with Richard, the beginning of the affair, the devotion to him, the love, her wanting him to tell the truth, her going away, the restraints in New York, her understanding them, continued support of him, presence at the trial, her final talk with him and promising not to reveal the truth? A Hollywood heroine?

7. The portrait of his family? the conventional wife and her strictness, her not recognizing him at the trial? The party sequence and giving him the gift for his daughter? His relationship with his son and daughter and the significance of the birthday party? His hiding the truth from them?

8. The presentation of the minor characters: Richard's wife and her preoccupation with punctuality, forms, bringing up her children? The boy imitating her? The bond between father and daughter? The proprietor of the nightclub and his friendship with Nora? The scenes in the restaurant, the fight? The associate doctor? The patient whose identity Dr Talbot took?

9. How well did the film build up the emotional entanglement of Richard? The needs at home, his strict way of life, Nora's comments to him and his attraction, the outings with her, her singing, the shared interests and the cleaning up of the cabin? The dilemmas in what to do and his late nights? His change of character after the assumption of the false identity?

10. The basic themes of love, fidelity, brittle marriages? What was the audience left with as Nora left the prison and Richard Talbot chose to die for the death of himself?