Being a mistress to a married man is a thankless position to be in, according to one of early 1900's more popular novelists, Fanny Hurst. Her 1931 'Back Street was an enormously popular best-selling novel about a confident young woman in Cincinnati who's swept off her feet by a man about to get married. Universal Pictures took the bold step to bring Hurst's book onto the screen in August 1932's "Back Street." Irene Dunne plays the independent Ray Schmidt, whom in modern times was a cinch to be a highly successful business woman. Walter Saxel (John Boles), while stepping off a train a week before he conjoins with a rich socialite in the city, has the temerity to ask the strolling Ms. Schmidt out on a date. So begins Ray's slippery slope down a frustrating rat hole.
Before divorce laws determined that either spouse could cite reasons to split, couples had to BOTH agree for the separation before the courts' ruled the marriage over. If one refused, then no divorce was granted. Many prominent figures, such as William Randolph Hearst and Spencer Tracy, failed to get their spouses to agree on a separation, and would, if the mistresses were lucky, shack up with them. According to "Back Street," playing second fiddle to a married man was a delusory, lonely life. In fact, the term "back streets" derives from Hurst's book. Ms. Schmidt informs her friend, who finds herself in a similar situation with a married man, that "there is no happiness on a back street in anyone's life." Ray Schmidt finds herself in this relationship because, to use a Blaise Pascal phrase, "the heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of."
John Stahl's adroit direction is aided by, as film reviewer Antti Alanen notes, "Irene Dunne's extraordinary performance. Her film career had started but two years earlier, her performance here reflects she has already a mature approach of great charm, sophistication, and complexity." The American Film Institute nominated Stahl's work as one of 400 to be considered for the top 100 America's Greatest Love Stories.
