THIS LOVE OF OURS

US, 1945, 90 minutes, Black and white.
Merle Oberon, Claude Rains, Charles Korvin, Carl Esmond, Sue England, Harry Davenport, Ralph Morgan.
Directed by William Dieterle.

This Love of Ours is the kind of romantic drama, melodrama, that was very popular in the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s. It is surprising to find that the film was made by Universal rather than Warner Brothers, so similar is it in story and tone to those films. And the director is William Dieterle, director of so many films at Warner Brothers, including biographies of Louis Pasteur, and Emile Zola, Juárez.

For years on screen, Merle Oberon had an ethereal beauty and it is manifest here where she plays a singer in Paris who falls in love with a young doctor (Charles Korvin), marries him and has a daughter. He seems to be a romantic lead until he makes an extraordinarily rash judgement about his wife and gossip in Paris that she is seeing another man. He rejects her, takes his daughter to the United States where he becomes a celebrated scientist. By chance, on a visit to a conference in Paris, he and his friends go to a cabaret where there is a sketch-artist, played by Claude Rains. His accompanist, Florence, is, in fact, the wife. She is restored to health by her husband.

Still grieving and wanting to see her daughter, she agrees to return to America with her husband, posing as his new wife, hoping to be accepted by her daughter. Certainly not. She has been pampered by her father and has a shrine to her mother. When her mother arrives, she is rude and trying to get rid of her. However, two chance arrivals… The sketch-artist arrives, does portrait of her friends at her party, and one of herself and of her mother in which she sees the resemblance and there is a reconciliation. The other arrival is a blind man who has been healed, a musician whom the wife was helping rather than having an affair. The husband is mortified – but the screenplay provides enough hope that it will be happy ever after.

1. The 1940s romance? From Universal Studios – like Warner Brothers 1930s and 1940s style, and the director? The story, photography, musical score (Oscar-nominated), the cast, romance and tragedy?

2. The black and white photography, Paris, the contrast with Connecticut? The atmosphere of Paris, the doctors, the clubs, homes, streets? the US, the mansion, the laboratories, the countryside?

3. The title, the emphasis on love, the emphasis on ours? The break? Genuine love? Wrong suspicions? Hurt and inability to speak frankly? The consequences? The daughter, thinking her monther dead, the shrine? Lost? The music? Illness? Caring and her working with Targel? The chance meeting, illness, operation? Consequences?

4. Michel’s story, his training as a doctor, his work, in Paris? Encountering Karin, singing, helping? Love, marriage, happiness, the daughter? His jealousy, his false accusation, the failure of the marriage and his losing Karin?

5. Karin, singing, with the group, her voice and Michel, falling in love, the marriage, the daughter, helping the blind man and her being harshly judged? Abandoned, lost? The chance meeting Michel again, helping Targel, her illness, Michel restoring her to health?

6. Michel at home, Connecticut, the laboratories, his experiments, the assistants and their work? His success?

7. His daughter, her age, spoilt, pampered, the shrine to her mother, the memories, devotion to her father? Her father bringing Florence, hostility and readiness?

8. Karin, her name of Florence, the decision to return, to pose as married, the pretence, the reaction of her daughter, her being hurt?

9. Targel and his support of Karin, his arrival in America, his sketches, the background of his work in Paris, his jovial charm and protection of Karin, the doctors enjoying his sketches? The children at the party, sketching the daughter, sketching Florence? The daughter recognising the mother in the sketch?

10. The blind man, his recovery, his visit, meeting Karin, the explanation of what had happened? Michel and his upset?

11. The daughter, the recognition, the reunion, the future?