Only Yesterday (1933) :
Brief Review -
Goes through the same mistakes as Max Ophüls's official adaptation "Letter from an Unknown Woman". Stahl's soap is relatable but absurd. When I saw the 1948 film version of Stefan Zweig's novel, I couldn't resist slamming it in my review. I don't know what critics and even some moviegoers liked about it, but for me it was an absurd idea completely. John M. Stahl's film is almost the same with a few changes, such as the positive climax and World War I conflict, but it couldn't score passing marks for me. I would like to mention those blunders so that the people who liked them should understand that they were fools. First, the film doesn't show you any concrete reason why and how the man forgot the girl. It doesn't even show when those two got time to make enough love to get a girl pregnant. I remember Mervyn LeRoy's "Random Harvest" (1942), starring Ronald Colman and Greer Garson, which had the same basic idea in its script. But the film explains the man's condition as being an amnesiac patient. Here you have a man who is completely healthy physically and mentally. How can he forget the girl after sleeping with her and making so many promises? The second big flaw is the girl's thinking about her life. At one moment, you know she has left it all behind and is ready to move on, but then suddenly she goes on to spend a night with the same man who has made her life miserable, and he is a great playboy too. She knows that he has had many girls in his life as he tries to seduce her despite being a married man, yet she is okay with kissing him. Wow, what a characterless woman. Suddenly, she is ill, and all of a sudden, one letter makes the man remember everything. Hands down for such intelligent writing. The only reason why I watched it was Margaret Sullavan, and she was good, and so was John Boles. Rest, it was a childish affair. I even doubt if children will find it logical. If I had seen it yesterday, I would have had it fade away from my memory right before going to sleep.
RATING - 5/10*
By - #samthebestest.
