After his Oscar winning role in The Story Of Louis Pasteur, Paul Muni was given a World War I aviation story as a follow up. In The Woman I Love which was a phrase gaining popular currency at the time because of the Duke of Windsor, Paul Muni plays a flier in the French Army who's good at his job, but a rather stiff sort who's not real popular with his fellow fliers. Helping with his unpopularity is the fact that his observer/tailgunner has been killed on the last three missions.
So when newcomer Louis Hayward volunteers to team with Muni, his peers think him very brave and a bit nuts. But what neither knows is that Hayward before he joined the squadron met and fell for Miriam Hopkins who is Mrs. Muni who was stepping out on him, taking in a show at the Folies Bergere alone where she met Hayward.
In these films a wartime triangle you know they can only end with one of the men being killed. I'll let you see the film to find out which one.
Muni's home studio Warner Brothers lent him to RKO for this film. The year before they lent him to MGM for The Good Earth and that was a big hit. This one is considerably less in quality.
The best part of the film is the aerial dogfight toward the end of the film with Muni and Hayward taking on three German planes. Howard Hughes couldn't have staged it better. The romantic part of the film is all right, but we've had better war time romances. The Woman I Love is also the farewell film of Colin Clive who plays the French squadron commander in the best British stiff upper lip tradition. That isn't a crack, Clive does very well in the part and his men respect him a lot.
Although it gets a bit melodramatic in spots The Woman I Love should satisfy the fans of the principal players.
