Her First Affaire

"Her First Affaire" is a very dull film from the Warner Brothers' unit in Britain. It has little to distinguish it, as the script and acting are all pretty poor. However, for film historians and classic cinema lovers, it's probably worth seeing because it's Ida Lupino's first credited film. However, if you watched the film and didn't know it, there's practically no way you could recognize the future star. Apparently, when she left the UK for the States, Warner Brothers gave her the most dramatic makeover I've ever seen...far more than the huge makeovers they gave to Hedy Lamarr and Rita Hayworth, and their huge changes were dramatic. In "Her First Affaire" Ida sports blonde hair, as she did in her early films. Her voice was totally different, as voice acting coaches were able to lower her very high pitched voice to the sultry one we'd all recognize today...and without a trace of her actual English accent! And, I also wonder if perhaps they did some early plastic surgery on her, as Ida simply looks NOTHING like the Ida Lupino of Warner Brothers USA....nothing.

As for the story, it's a dreadfully stuffy film about a silly young girl (Lupino) who falls for a man who writes dime novels...and she disrupts his entire household and life in the process. While this sounds very interesting, it isn't as the dull script and overly mannered acting does everything they can to make the film insufferably dull.