Back Street

While John M Stahl's 1932 version of Fannie Hurst's tearjerking romantic novel achieved the emotional charge later associated with the best of Douglas Sirk's work, this careful, well acted remake seldom ignites the explosive emotions. Sullavan is the self-annihilating mistress who lives for twenty years in shabby rooms, while her lover (Boyer) goes on with his comfortable married life. Remade, to lushly unhappy effect, in a Ross Hunter production directed by David Miller in 1961, with Susan Hayward and John Gavin.