This Is My Affair

In a recent biography of Barbara Stanwyck, I learned that Darryl Zanuck was keen on teaming Stanwyck with her soon to be husband Robert Taylor. Stanwyck freelanced and was currently owing 20th Century Fox a picture, so Zanuck must have worked something out with Louis B. Mayer at MGM to get his favorite star over to Fox.

The year before the Taylor/Stanwyck team starred in His Brother's Wife which I'm sure did good business, but wasn't exactly memorable. Neither would This Is My Affair if it hadn't been for the fact that it starred a couple that were a hot gossip column item.

What Zanuck did was give Bob and Barbara a vehicle that must have at some time been intended for Tyrone Power and Alice Faye. It's a period piece set at the turn of the last century. Barbara is even given a couple of songs by Alice's own songwriting team of Harry Revel and Mack Gordon to do as well as some period public domain music. Apparently she does them herself because I see no credit for voice dubbing. They would have been better had Alice Faye done them however.

Taylor is a Navy Lieutenant on detached assignment to work a job for President William McKinley personally. McKinley is worried about a successful gang of bank-robbers operating in the Midwest who seem to have inside information about vault combinations and even have keys to let themselves in at night so no break-in is required. He has Taylor go under deep cover and report only to him if needed.

It takes months, but Taylor does find the gang which is headed by Brian Donlevy and Victor McLaglen. He also finds Donlevy's stepsister Barbara Stanwyck with whom he falls for. But still his duty is clear.

The notion that a President of the United States is taking such a personal interest in apprehending a gang of robbers is interesting. William McKinley's administration was one that had a lot foreign and domestic concerns. I can't believe that particular president could have involved himself in this crime investigation. But also the banking system was not so tightly regulated that one man could have had all that inside information. It's not even that tightly regulated now, even with the creation of the Federal Reserve which was a dozen or so years in the future.

In fact McKinley's own assassination nearly cooks Taylor's goose. Frank Conroy looked very much like William McKinley and his character portrayal was accurate right down to the cigars McKinley enjoyed, the only vice this most Christian of presidents was known to have. Sidney Blackmer played Theodore Roosevelt many times on screen and really does make you think you're watching TR himself. He was much better at it than John Alexander from Arsenic And Old Lace.

The two stars who soon married never did another project together while they were husband and wife. Taylor and Stanwyck did do The Night Walker after their divorce almost thirty years later. None of the three films is at the top drawer of credits for either star.

Did anyone watching this movie wonder if President McKinley got assassinated, because of his secret attempt to unmask one of his confidantes as the kingpin of a crime syndicate? It's a question that was left unexplored here, because, I take it, Americans of the thirties never saw the event as anything but the act of a lone fanatic instead of as a conspiracy. After all, audiences were still recovering from the aftermath of a Depression, and the movies of the time were more concerned with stamping out the Little Caesars and Duke Santees of the day than uncovering political corruption. Allan Rivkin ("The Farmer's Daughter") wrote an interesting story about a naval officer (Robert Taylor) who, in secret correspondence with McKinley, uncovers the linchpin behind a wave of bank robberies in the upper Midwest centered in, of all places, St. Paul, Minnesota. The screenplay gets sanctimonious in the hands of Lamar Trotti, and the script did not inspire William Seiter to more imaginative heights. Brian Donlevy plays the crime boss with his usual menace, while Barbara Stanwyck (of all people) as his half-sister is made to sing (She's barely on-key, like Marlene Dietrich in "The Blue Angel.") and wear big, floppy hats--even in her stage act. The only one I've ever seen on screen who could pull off wearing headgear like these is Mae West, and she was at least in on the joke. Stanwyck, on the other hand, is forced to be unswervingly sincere throughout. Her character Lil and the officer idle on Lake Como and get serious about each other, much to the dismay of Victor MacLaglen who's Donlevy's sidekick, prone to playing practical jokes, and thinks he has it in with her. The acting is uniformly bad; I guess Stanwyck and Taylor were too much in love at the time to care. The story deserved better than this. A secret only you and the President share you would think should take precedence over run-of-the mill movie romance. Unless it involves a cigar and a stained dress...

Years before Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck were married, they made a couple of films together: His Brother's Wife and This Is My Affair. If you're looking for cute chemistry, rent the 1937 movie, because the first film they made together isn't particularly romantic.

In this one, Robert Taylor gets sent on a secret undercover mission by President McKinley to help catch bank robbers. It sounds like an extremely lame plot, and while no one would ever accuse this movie of turning into a classic, if you want to see an acting couple who eventually got married, you can rent it. Bob goes undercover, with only a secret symbol to write on his letters as proof that the president is on his side, and along the way falls in love with nightclub singer Barbara Stanwyck.

One of the fun parts of the movie, besides seeing the lovebirds together, is Sidney Blackmer's Theodore Roosevelt impression. He's very entertaining, and the script includes several of the President's famous quotes to make audiences chuckle.

1937's "This is My Affair" could have been better but as it is, barely gets by. Robert Taylor stars as a Navy lieutenant who is asked by President McKinley to get the name of the men robbing banks all over the country, and his mission is to be kept secret between the two of them. Taylor infiltrates the gang by becoming a criminal himself. He meets the dumb, big practical joker (Victor McLaglen) and the brains (Brian Donlevy) - but there's a head name, whose name he can't get. McLaglen has it bad for Donlevy's half-sister, a saloon singer (Stanwyck) with whom Taylor falls in love.

The premise isn't bad if you can suspend your imagination, and the end is fairly tense, but "This is My Affair" just isn't a well-made or well-thought out film. First of all, Stanwyck was one of the most versatile and multi-talented actresses in Hollywood, but singing wasn't her greatest talent. In fact, she couldn't sing, with the exception of "Take it Off the E String (Play it on the G String) in "Lady of Burlesque" and a little number in "Banjo on my Knee" that can't count as singing. Her outfits were from the Mae West School of Design and overpowered her tiny frame.

Then there is the awful scene with Theodore Roosevelt where he invents the phrase, "Speak softly but carry a big stick" - embarrassing. Taylor slugs through it professionally, but why did makeup people always slather so much pancake and eye shadow on him? This is a 20th Century Fox film, by the way, not MGM, Taylor's usual studio, but MGM did it too. Fox never made Tyrone Power up like that with the exception of "Lloyds of London." Taylor was a handsome, rugged man. I guess they couldn't leave his face alone. Victor McLaglen isn't very good, but Donlevy, in a usual-type role for him, does a good job.

It is a chance to see the two married stars work together.

In 1937 Darryl Zanuck, who had recently moved from head of production at Warner Brothers, was trying to get his newly created company, 20th Century Fox off the ground and on a level playing field with his old bosses at Warners and the glitter palace at MGM. "This Is My Affair" was an attempt to cash in on the current success of historical films set around the turn of the century ("San Francisco" "In Old Chicago")and in retrospect he succeeded quite mightily. The plot is fascinating. A trouble maker but heroic naval officer (Robert Taylor) is given a secret assignment by President McKinley to uncover a ring of bank robbers that are paralyzing American finance. He finds the gang but falls in love with their female mascot (Barbara Stanwyck) and must decide between love and duty.

Not everything about this vintage film works well, but overall it is a good slice of studio film-making. The plot gimmick would be borrowed by Kurt Vonnegut for "Mother Night" (the lead role of that film of the book was played brilliantly by Nick Nolte) and seems quite believable, at least within the confides of studio make believe. As a fan of old movies I am always thrilled when I stumble upon one that I have never seen and "This is my Affair" was no exception.