This Is My Affair

Years before Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck were married, they made a couple of films together: His Brother's Wife and This Is My Affair. If you're looking for cute chemistry, rent the 1937 movie, because the first film they made together isn't particularly romantic.

In this one, Robert Taylor gets sent on a secret undercover mission by President McKinley to help catch bank robbers. It sounds like an extremely lame plot, and while no one would ever accuse this movie of turning into a classic, if you want to see an acting couple who eventually got married, you can rent it. Bob goes undercover, with only a secret symbol to write on his letters as proof that the president is on his side, and along the way falls in love with nightclub singer Barbara Stanwyck.

One of the fun parts of the movie, besides seeing the lovebirds together, is Sidney Blackmer's Theodore Roosevelt impression. He's very entertaining, and the script includes several of the President's famous quotes to make audiences chuckle.

A bland title disguises this solidly-carpentered example of old-fashioned Hollywood entertainment, this film proves a largely successful hodgepodge of several disparate elements: a period piece, a romantic drama, a crime movie and a political thriller. Interestingly, though made by Fox, its protagonists – Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck – were both usually associated with other studios; their on screen chemistry here is palpable and eventually led to marriage in a couple of years' time. While a bit too young, Taylor is a dashing hero (a Marine personally appointed by President McKinley to uncover the culprits behind an organized clean-up of numerous banks); unsurprisingly, no sooner has he tracked them down (led by smooth Brian Donlevy and thuggish Victor McLaglen) that he falls for a chanteuse (naturally, Stanwyck) who has thrown her lot with the gang – although, truth be told, singing is far from being the actress' forte! Similarly, apart from having to prove his worth to make it into their fold, he has to vie with McLaglen for Stanwyck's attentions; by the way, the practical joker persona of the former reminded me a lot of Charley Chase in SONS OF THE DESERT (1933) which, incidentally, was likewise directed by William A. Seiter. Later on, Taylor is in two minds about involving Stanwyck in the impending bait and tries to offer his resignation to the President while eloping with the girl – but the jealous rival disrupts his plans. The robbery gone awry, we find Donlevy dead and the other two in jail; Taylor's hopes for McKinley's intervention – having meanwhile learned the identity of the elusive and obviously prominent 'inside man' – are seemingly dashed when the President winds up assassinated himself (a great plot twist, though the resulting eleventh-hour suspense feels contrived)! To get back to the film's jumble of styles, even if the vaudeville sequences are a matter of taste, the romantic triangle slows things up and it skimps somewhat on the thriller aspect, this emerges a handsome production indeed – with the actors already mentioned ably supported by the likes of John Carradine (who unaccountably disappears after just one scene!), Douglas Fowley, Sig Rumann and, as two American Presidents, Sidney Blackmer (the bubbly Theodore Roosevelt) and Frank Conroy (McKinley).

The script is not too logical, there are many blank spaces here, but the story is good, and it gets exciting towards the end. Barbara Stanwyck is the star here as always, and although a singer of the same parenthesis category as Marlene Dietrich, her acting is superb and totally convincing all the way as usual. Robert Taylor makes one of his first roles as a totally honest gentleman who gets into trouble and has a hard time getting out of it, while Victor McLaglen is the only fun here who constantly has hearty laughs at his own practical jokes on others, even when he is shortly to be hanged. Brian Donleavy plays a sympathetic gangster, while the main attraction and merits of the film are all the wonderfully recreated musical numbers of that time around 1901, when President William McKinley was shot and Theodore Roosevelt entered the White House - he is convincing enough and has a few scenes. The film is great entertainment and reaches some levels of excitement, so it is by all means worth watching.

A pair of nuns escort a group of schoolgirls through Arlington National Cemetery, where they stop at the grave of Richard L. Perry, a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. When the nuns are unable to answer a girl's query as to why Perry is buried therein, the film flashes back to 1901. The young Perry, played by Robert Taylor, is at a White House reception, where he is called into conference with President William McKinley. The President asks Perry to pursue a gang of bank robbers, who evidently have inside information from a high government source. Fearful that information sensitive to national security may also be at risk, the President tells Perry to drop out of the Navy without giving any reason, change his identity and break contact with friends, and only report by secretly coded letter to the President personally. This far-fetched premise sends Perry, without any apparent funds, to St. Paul, for no given reason, where he begins his quest for the robbers and the government leaker.

Viewers who can swallow the credibility-stretching plot conceived by Allen Rivkin and Lamar Trotti may find a few nuggets of silver among the gravel that constitutes "This is My Affair." Even the generic title, which offers no clue about the film's subject matter, is forgettable. Directed by William A. Seiter and filmed in black and white by Robert Planck, the movie is barely passable entertainment largely for fans of the stars. Robert Taylor in his youth was always too pretty for tough-guy roles, and he plays Perry without the necessary grit to convincingly stand up to his tough co-stars. Always a fascinating actress even in undemanding roles such as this, Barbara Stanwyck is Lil, a club singer and unwilling gangster moll. Lil performs, clumsily at times, in a club operated by Jock. Splendidly played by Victor McLaglen, Jock is a boorish childish jokester in love with Lil. When Taylor pursues an initially reluctant Stanwyck, the expected conflict with McLaglen arises, which, like everything else in this tired script, is a clichéd retread from dozens of other movies. Brian Donlevy as Batiste, the brains behind McLaglen, and John Carradine offer convincing support. However, Sydney Blackmer's corny impersonation of President Theodore Roosevelt is embarrassing; listening to him say "Speak softly and carry a big stick" over and over will make audiences cringe.

Although "This is My Affair" is somewhat vague as to what "affair" the title refers, the flimsy contrived plot offers little beyond a gangster story wrapped up in early 20th-century period costumes. Like the unnecessary prolog in Arlington Cemetery, the intrusive musical numbers that regularly interrupt the film only serve to extend the running time. Stanwyck was not noted for her singing or her dancing, and even her skill as an actress fails to convince that she is a great stage presence. While Taylor is handsome and Stanwyck is worth watching, McLaglen gives the film's best performance as Jock, the big overgrown kid, who always has a new joke or trick to play. However, other than McLaglen, Stanwyck, and Donlevy, "This is My Affair" could be re-titled "This is a Dull Affair."

Did anyone watching this movie wonder if President McKinley got assassinated, because of his secret attempt to unmask one of his confidantes as the kingpin of a crime syndicate? It's a question that was left unexplored here, because, I take it, Americans of the thirties never saw the event as anything but the act of a lone fanatic instead of as a conspiracy. After all, audiences were still recovering from the aftermath of a Depression, and the movies of the time were more concerned with stamping out the Little Caesars and Duke Santees of the day than uncovering political corruption. Allan Rivkin ("The Farmer's Daughter") wrote an interesting story about a naval officer (Robert Taylor) who, in secret correspondence with McKinley, uncovers the linchpin behind a wave of bank robberies in the upper Midwest centered in, of all places, St. Paul, Minnesota. The screenplay gets sanctimonious in the hands of Lamar Trotti, and the script did not inspire William Seiter to more imaginative heights. Brian Donlevy plays the crime boss with his usual menace, while Barbara Stanwyck (of all people) as his half-sister is made to sing (She's barely on-key, like Marlene Dietrich in "The Blue Angel.") and wear big, floppy hats--even in her stage act. The only one I've ever seen on screen who could pull off wearing headgear like these is Mae West, and she was at least in on the joke. Stanwyck, on the other hand, is forced to be unswervingly sincere throughout. Her character Lil and the officer idle on Lake Como and get serious about each other, much to the dismay of Victor MacLaglen who's Donlevy's sidekick, prone to playing practical jokes, and thinks he has it in with her. The acting is uniformly bad; I guess Stanwyck and Taylor were too much in love at the time to care. The story deserved better than this. A secret only you and the President share you would think should take precedence over run-of-the mill movie romance. Unless it involves a cigar and a stained dress...