The Other Love (1947)

If you ever wished Barbara Stanwyck had starred in Dark Victory, rent The Other Love for your chance at recasting the Hollywood classic. In this romantic drama, Barbara has a serious lung condition and has to abandon her career as a famous concert pianist to heal in a Swiss sanitorium. It's not long before she falls in love with her doctor, David Niven, but is he hiding the seriousness of her illness from her?Barbara Stanwyck gives an excellent performance in this overlooked film. She usually portrays very strong, independent characters, so whenever she breaks down and cries or begs for help, it's truly heartbreaking. Get ready to be heartbroken more than once during this film. I like Barbara anyway, but I was particularly impressed by her range of emotions: fear, anger, resentment, love, relief, hope, and determination. Ladislas Fodor and Harry Brown's script wasn't the strongest element in the film, and I could imagine another actress would have either been too flat or too melodramatic. Barbara is very real.In addition to the medical portion of the film, Barbara is also caught in a love triangle, torn between David Niven and Richard Conte. While I love The Niv, Richard Conte is very magnetic. One man knows her past, and the other could be her future; one keeps up a professional front, and the other is overtly passionate. Which will she choose? Find out by renting this romance on a cold, rainy afternoon.

Famed concert pianist Karen Duncan (Barbara Stanwyck) is recuperating in a Swiss sanatorium from a respiratory illness under the supervision of loving Dr. Tony Stanton (David Niven). She befriends fellow patient Celestine Miller (Joan Lorring). Playboy Paul Clermont (Richard Conte) crashes his race car barely avoiding Karen on the road. Her illness is more serious than she suspects. She is shocked by Celestine's unexpected death. Stanton tells her that she must rest but she ignores his advise and runs off to live her life with Clermont. It's a bit slow. With Stanwyck, it holds out a possibility of something more. I was hoping for a good twist or something different. In the end, it doesn't really give more than a straight downward slide into a romantic melodrama.

Barbara Stanwyck stars as Karen, a famous concert pianist, who is sent to a picturesque Swiss sanitarium for a lengthy stay. She's suffering from TB and the prognosis isn't good, but her doctor (David Niven) takes a special interest in her case. Karen tires of endless bed rest, however, and falls for a smooth-talking race car driver (Richard Conte).This is a wonderful movie, very much a product of its time. Glamour is everything, as the sanitarium guests dine in gowns and tuxedos while taking long, smoldering drags on their cigarettes. Stanwyck's wardrobe was designed by Edith Head and she looks gorgeous. Niven is a dreamy doctor while Conte is a bit off-putting as the driver on the make.It's all very pretty and Stanwyck only coughs when the music swells, very Camille-like. It's obvious that they completely changed the ending, but that's a minor quibble with such a sumptuous, romantic story as this. Recommended if you like movies the way they used to be.

The Other Love (1947)A torrid but never horrid romantic movie, what was called then a "woman's picture" and is now in the category of "chick flic." Which is what makes it worth watching right there--it's dripping with love and longing and ideals gone astray. It's set in a sanitarium the Swiss Alps and is grand as well as comforting. And it stars Barbara Stanwyck as a world famous pianist, and she pulls every scene up a notch. The men are less compelling: David Niven is necessarily dry and reserved (and no great contribution to the romance), and Richard Conte is supposed to be the Italian love idol but in fact he's dry and reserved, too, unnecessarily.The plot is based on a short story by the uneven but legendary German writer Erich Maria Remarque (who is neither a woman nor French), whose work is the basis of several movies, notably the pacifist WWI novel, "All Quiet on the Western Front." I say all this because the one clear flaw in this movie is the plot, the Remarque part of it. In a way, the idea of going to a t.b. clinic to get better or die (the two options equally likely back then) and having an arrogant famous woman face her mortality, sounds like a no-brainer. And her back and forth, her rebellion, her falling in love (tepidly) or falling in lust (still rather tepidly) is great stuff not quite exploited. And there is no real turn of events. It plays itself out, beautifully but inexorably.That is, this is a really warm, gorgeous movie, with photography by Victor Milner, who had just finished two cinematic masterpieces ("It's a Wonderful Life" and Stanwyck's previous film, "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers"). And the music is great (of course), led by Miklos Rozsa, an old world high romantic composer. You want to be there, and you relate to Stanwyck's dilemma. It's a great movie in its bones, but never quite getting off the ground. Yet it is about stuff that matters: acceptance and deception in the face of death, from several sides. And it is, in fact, about true love of some highly idealized, self-sacrificing kind.