AniInterview
Sorry, this movie sucks
VividSimon
Simply Perfect
dougdoepke
Plot-- A pregnant young woman is left with responsibilities when her soldier lover is abruptly sent overseas during WWII. So she looks to her married sister for help. All of which leads to unforeseen complications.PRC was infamous for its bottom-of-the- barrel dreck, so why take a chance on one of its productions. All in all, this movie's a good reason why. No, the 1946 flick's not going to be confused with a glossy Ross Hunter soaper from the prosperous 50's. Still, this 90-minutes is well-mounted, well-acted, and intelligently handled. That opening Mardi Gras scene is a grabber, conveying a real sense of joyous abandon. Clearly, PRC popped bigger bucks to back director Ulmer, while Ulmer responds with style and restraint. I particularly like the way the couple's intimate night is conveyed. First there's Toni and Dick in a romantic upspiral, then Ulmer cuts to a romantic shot of the night sky, and finally he inserts a gloriously lit daybreak. The result is a tricky topic finessed via cinematic art. Then too, a topic like unwed mothers and lost love could easily descend into overload. But not here. The movie manages its touching parts without getting sappy. Plus, the principals (Coleman, Lindsey, and Reed) calibrate without over-emoting despite the heavy material. I expect the topic of tangled relationships really registered with uprooted wartime audiences. Looks too, like the story's moral says a lot about there being more to parents than just biology, even if the point takes a while to work out. I guess my only gripe is with the heavenly choir ending, which really does pile it on. Anyway, this skillful production shows that even lowly PRC could manage a respectable result when it really tried.
RanchoTuVu
World War II era Mardi Gras in New Orleans complete with confetti, parades, and streamers, where the well-heeled daughter of a scholar on the Mayas meets and has an "indiscretion" with a soldier about to be shipped out to fight in the war. The real drama comes after the baby arrives and the meaning of the film's title becomes clearer, as the older sister of the young woman convinces her that she and her (the sister's) husband could raise the baby as their own and everyone would believe they were the baby's biological parents. The story moves from New Orleans to New York with a stop at a ranch in Arizona, the young sister (Nancy Coleman) finds the emotional attachment to her baby is stronger than she expected and forces the older sister to hold her to her promise, which is the angle that really motivates the movie.
BrentCarleton
It is nothing if not puzzling, that despite all the attention Mr. Ulmer's other work receives, "Her Sister's Secret," remains consigned to some no man's land--ignored, ignored, ignored...Very bewildering indeed, since, Mr. Ulmer is clearly working above his usual constraints, as is evidenced by the fact that it doesn't look like a PRC film at all! By some feat or other, a bit more coin was dropped here and it shows.Working this time without his usual collaborators, (or should we say culprits?) producer Leon Fromkess and art director Paul Palmentola) Ulmer achieves something completely unlike the pulp antics of "Monsoon" or "Delinguent Daughters,"--a posh women's picture in the Douglas Sirk mode--all velvet and satin and ball masques.Indeed, the film looks for all the world like one of Ross Hunter's early black and white dramas for Universal--(before he ascended into Eastmancolor heaven)-such are the film's physical and aural accoutrements, (among the latter note the use of a celestial choir in the fadeout just as in 1959's "Imitation of Life").To avoid "spoilers" suffice it to say that the story hinges on a well born young miss who finds herself in trouble after an indiscretion with a furloughed soldier during Mardi Gras. Though Miss Coleman's character mentions her extreme "shame," the picture avoids the moral implications of her dilemma in favor of the unavoidable emotional attachment she feels toward her child. To the picture's credit it strongly emphasizes the permanent natural and ethical link that maternity imposes, (this would be an excellent film for pro-abortionists to see.) That the principal players are Phillip Reed, soulfully beautiful Nancy Coleman, and tres chic Margaret Lindsay assures the audience of three very good looking leads. In addition it offers veteran player Henry Stephenson a good part preparatory to his trek to Albion in order to film David Lean's "Oliver Twist," (didn't Ulmer rub shoulders with interesting people?)Though bereft of Eugene Shufftan's fabled expertise on this project, Mr. Ulmer was lucky to secure the services of Franz Planer, a superb cinematographer in his own right, who manages deftly smooth boom maneuvers amidst the moody settings (the work of art director Edward Jewell). This is most evident in the film's superb opening, in which Mr. Planer rides his camera through the flying confetti and contorted, gyrating and swaying movement of the masqued revelries of the Mardi Gras, (this film anticipates, on a smaller scale, the carnival sequence in "Saraband for Dead Lovers").The settings include the terraced New Orleans restaurant where the film opens, Mr. Stephenson's private library, an Arizona Sanitorium, Central Park and Miss Lindsay's swank Manhatten duplex apartment, which seems to take some of its stylistic cues from Premingers "Laura," (all white on white satin with the requisite terrace.) And being a women's picture a nod must go to "Donn" who provided the Misses Coleman and Lindsay with a mouth watering wardrobe, which serves as a reminder at what a dear sartorial cost the cultural meltdown of recent decades has wrought--one won't find on screen elegance like this today. Why the milliner alone must have made a killing on this picture! And take a gander at that satin lined split sleeve number Miss Lindsay wears in her final scene.All told, this is a smoothly turned and consistently interesting treatment of a perennial problem--and deserves a far higher place on the list of Mr. Ulmer's credentials than "Jive Junction".
jjodo32
I found this a very touching film, perhaps because I too spent leave in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. However, in my case my loneliness was not assuaged by a tryst with a lovely young woman who gave me access to all the best New Orleans had to offer during wartime. In keeping with conventions of the day the woman is punished for her sin when, not having heard from her lover who has returned to duty, she gives up her baby to her married sister. Although somewhat dated & melodramatic the film works on many levels. I particularly liked the evocation of the New Orleans social scene during Mardi Gras, something I missed when I was there.
