slothropgr Review of Unfaithfully Yours

Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

Quintessential Sturges and Harrison--but is that good?

[7/10 · 2 October 2007]

I'm not sure how anyone--Sturges or Zanuck especially--could figure that audiences would go for this picture. Here we have a protagonist (one certainly can't call him a hero) who is duplicitous, arch, and neurotic to the point of psychosis, played by an actor who hammers each of these characteristics home like a railroad spike. It's one thing to fantasize about murdering one's wife (without a shred of proof), it's quite another to then go about trying to do it in real life (with no more proof). Sturges seemed to think that making Harrison utterly incompetent and slapsticky in the attempt would make it funny. Whether he ever intended that the audience forgive or even tolerate this would-be murderer isn't clear. One passionate declaration after he's failed just isn't enough. And casting the inexpressibly beautiful Linda Darnell in one of her very few completely sympathetic roles doesn't help. She could play both sides of the fidelity coin better than anyone, but he doesn't give her the chance. Her fidelity is so overplayed at times that I was quite prepared for at least a little undercutting. But it never came. I wonder if a year later, his career in ruins because of this picture, Sturges saw "Kind Hearts and Coronets" and figured out where he went wrong.