More than a decade before the more mature Claudette Colbert went through pretty much the same issue set after World War II, she starred in this early talkie set right after World War I. She is a young war wife whose husband (Clive Brook) is off in battle and ends up becoming nurse to a handsome doctor (Charles Boyer). Right before assisting him in surgery, she finds out that Brook is believed to be dead, and is fired from her job for being a wifeless mother-to-be. Boyer falls in love with her and they are on the verge of getting married when they all of a sudden run into the supposedly deceased husband, going through therapy at the same resort with his physical therapist (an amusing Andy Devine). Being the moral person that she is, Colbert overlooks her love for Boyer and contemplates returning to the husband she thought long dead with the hopes of introducing him to their son.
Simple and direct tearjerker, this is filled with clichés and unbelievable twists and turns, but thanks to smooth acting and direction, it ends up being a relatively entertaining romantic drama. It is unique in itself not to be considered a duplicate of Colbert's later film (with Orson Welles as the supposedly deceased husband and George Brent as her new one) even if the Enoch Arden theme (man comes back from dead) is a theatrical staple going back to the origins of the stage. All of the acting is note-worthy, and Brook, sometimes one of the most boring of early talkie romantic leading men, comes off as masculine and likable, never begging for pity even though his leading lady insists on giving it to him.
The emotional highlight of the film is the single meeting between father and son, almost equal in impact to Garbo's final scene with Freddie Bartholomew in "Anna Karenina" and the reuniting of mother and son in "Madame X". However, this isn't a "father love" story even if it seems like it is heading down that path. It is more of a story of the horrors of war, evidence that just because somebody survived battle doesn't mean they truly came back alive.
Simple and direct tearjerker, this is filled with clichés and unbelievable twists and turns, but thanks to smooth acting and direction, it ends up being a relatively entertaining romantic drama. It is unique in itself not to be considered a duplicate of Colbert's later film (with Orson Welles as the supposedly deceased husband and George Brent as her new one) even if the Enoch Arden theme (man comes back from dead) is a theatrical staple going back to the origins of the stage. All of the acting is note-worthy, and Brook, sometimes one of the most boring of early talkie romantic leading men, comes off as masculine and likable, never begging for pity even though his leading lady insists on giving it to him.
The emotional highlight of the film is the single meeting between father and son, almost equal in impact to Garbo's final scene with Freddie Bartholomew in "Anna Karenina" and the reuniting of mother and son in "Madame X". However, this isn't a "father love" story even if it seems like it is heading down that path. It is more of a story of the horrors of war, evidence that just because somebody survived battle doesn't mean they truly came back alive.