A Lost Lady (1934)
6/10
early Stanwyck
4 June 2005
Barbara Stanwyck is young and a lovely as a woman whose fiancée is killed by an angry husband just before their wedding. Embittered, she retreats to the mountains and finds healing in the affections of Frank Morgan, who plays a wealthy attorney who falls in love with her.

Stanwyck marries him, though explains to poor Frank that she doesn't love him. Their bedrooms, therefore, are across the hall from one another. With money, social standing, beauty, and being married, which makes her unattainable, Stanwyck soon finds the men are crawling out of the woodwork, including a very young Lyle Talbot and Ricardo Cortez, who lands his plane on her lawn.

Morgan and Stanwyck are excellent and give the story a very touching quality. One scene struck me as a little odd, censorship wise: At the beginning of the film, Morgan rescues Stanwyck from a fall. The next day, he walks by her house and pokes his head in her bedroom to see how she's doing. She's in bed, recovering. He's invited in. The maid leaves the bedroom and closes the door.

Either I'm getting too old or my sensibility is too modern, but I found this scene peculiar for 1934. I'd love to know how this got past the code since there was a big argument about "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." An unmarried woman, in her pajamas, entertaining a gentleman caller in her bedroom. Oh, well.
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