I came to this film via Karina Longworth's excellent podcast series "You Must Remember This" which I recommend to one and all. She did a mini-series on the women in the life of Howard Hughes and where this movie figures on this is because of course, main female lead Jean Peters was for many years Mrs Howard Hughes. Although not betrothed to the billionaire at the time of the film's release, she was already in the background as one of his pet starlet-girlfriends. Other than that however, Hughes had nothing to do with this particular movie but egged on by Ms Longworth's warning of a major plot twist halfway through the film, I duly tracked it down.
Taking its title from a popular song from the late 19th Century, which you hear frequently during its running time, the film certainly isn't the light-hearted, frothy musical you might have expected, although it starts a bit like that as we meet young David Wayne's Ben Halper character, a gentleman's barber to trade and his pretty young wife, Nellie, played by Peters. Newly-wed, she thinks he's taking them to an exciting new life in bustling Chicago, but no, the more practical and parochial Wayne has decided to set up both his business and family home in the small town of Sevillinois.
This doesn't go well with the ambitious Nellie even as she assures Wayne of her love and duly bears him a son and daughter, so that it's not long before she's attracting the attention of flash-harry married man-about-town Ed Jordan. Meanwhile, hubby further entrenches himself in the community by joining both the local band and when the First World War comes around, the town's army battalion. Then, while he's away from home, Nellie and Jordan decide to take a fateful train journey together to the big smoke of Chicago, where they both feel they belong.
What happens next is that unexpected plot shift which I can say no more about without getting into spoiler territory, but what I will say is that the film ends up as an up-and-down fifty-year biography of a little man who pays the price for not considering the dreams and ambitions of those he loves but still comes across as an agreeable and believable human being, just an ordinary average, play-safe kind of guy.
Unusually for a B-movie, with cast to match, it's shot in a very dark-hued technicolour rather than cheaper black and white and is directed by the worthy Henry King. Wayne does a good job carrying the narrative on his shoulders from start to finish, ageing considerably as he goes and Peters makes a big impression too as his starry-eyed wife. Clearly Wayne hasn't heard the old phrase, "Happy wife, happy life" and pays the price for his own selfishness. He's not a bad man, he just thinks he's always right and is obviously a slow learner from his experiences as we later see in his testy relationship with his grown-up son.
Director King keeps the story moving from one major event to the next in Wayne's long life, taking in drama and tragedy by turn, even culminating in a good old fashioned Chicago gangster shoot-out, which reminded me of the old Tyrone Power-starring feature "In Old Chicago" which King helmed several years before.
It's always good to find a watchable old movie you've never heard of before and so it was here. This isn't the first vintage movie I've viewed on Ms Longworth's recommendation and on the evidence here, it won't be the last.
