La flamme qui s'éteint

The most interesting part of this singular film is the co-acting between Margaret Sullavan and Viveca Lindfors. They both love the same man, and Viveca is intent on leaving him not knowing that his wife Margaret is dying, while Margaret is intent on leaving her family to her after her death. They are rivals but very sympathetic and find each other, and Viveca also has a tragedy behind, having lost her husband in the war after too short a marriage, and somehow they find each other in their mutual fathomless sorrow and sadness.

The story is not remarkable. It's an ordinary melodrama in the style of Douglas Sirk, Margaret thinks she is crowning her family happiness by at last having another child, and hopefully a son, when the doctor tells her otherwise. She forces him to tell her the whole truth, which is that she only has six months left to live. She decides not to tell her husband (Wendell Corey), but although he gets mixed up with the lovely Viveca, who is employed as his assistant, he decides that Margaret and their daughter (Natalie Wood) mean more to him than Viveca, without knowing his wife is dying.

This is a rather ordinary sob story, but Margaret Sullavan turns it into something much more advanced by her heart-rending acting, which is totally sincere and almost unbearably convincing all the way. Your heart will bleed for her, and you will sob throughout the film, if you are human. Only she knows what she is up to, while the others just carry on, believing she is on as well, and her doctor plays a key role as he knows the whole truth and has to stand by her without any power to do anything. To all this comes the very prudent and delicate score by George During which gradually transcends into Brahms (1st symphony, last movement), which eventually gives the film something of an apotheosis of the kind that Frank Borage used to excel in, who made several of Margaret Sullavan's best films. She is forgotten today, but all her films stand out still, and she was actually married to Henry Fonda to begin with. This was her last film and in some ways both her most personal and typical.