This Barbara-Stanwyck-Henry-Fonda stinker of a movie doesn't really have redeeming qualities. It's rather depressing, in fact, that Dalton Trumbo had written the story on which it's built. I expect better taste from him. However, Trumbo's not the listed screenwriter for this film adaptation.
This movie came out seven months after "The Lady Eve." It must have been some desperate attempt to ride the coattails of the earlier Stanwyck-Fonda "Eve" pairing which had a certain charm even though it was just a screwball comedy. Wow, this one, though, has some rather nasty subtexts going on. First and most importantly, Fonda knows from the time he first meets her that Stanwyck is a physician with an established medical practice. Thus, he can have had no doubt that she typically saw a wide variety of patients. In a family practice, that means that she almost certainly would be treating women, children and men as well. However, this movie plot has Fonda making himself embarrassingly jealous over Stanwyck's male patients, as if they all make passes at her and that she, like some mindless tramp with no character, would be seduced by them. That's so insulting to the doctor whom Stanwyck portrays and to all women that it's shocking that even way back in 1941 anyone could have thought it amusing. If Fonda thinks that Stanwyck is or will be a tramp now, or is so stupid as to be gullible enough to be tricked and seduced by her patients, then obviously Fonda would also have to think that Stanwyck had always been just that much of a fool. If seeing male patients now would somehow make her behave as an amoral tramp, then the obvious corollary is that she already must have been behaving as a tramp with her previous patients. In that case, it's stupid to have Fonda written as falling in love with her. He just wouldn't have respected nor trusted her from the beginning.
A second big problem, though not as bad as the first one, is that the plot has a Depression-era presumption that Fonda taking a job would rob some other man of any chance to work. Maybe that outlook was a little bit understandable in 1941 because the United States had not entered World War II yet, not till December. It was wartime manufacturing jobs which finally pulled the United States out of the last of the Depression's unemployment morass. Nevertheless, it's just very stupid and shortsighted to assume that one man's job directly causes some other man to go jobless.
Oh, yeah, Stanwyck's Edith Head wardrobe is good -- but that's not enough reason to watch this.
This movie came out seven months after "The Lady Eve." It must have been some desperate attempt to ride the coattails of the earlier Stanwyck-Fonda "Eve" pairing which had a certain charm even though it was just a screwball comedy. Wow, this one, though, has some rather nasty subtexts going on. First and most importantly, Fonda knows from the time he first meets her that Stanwyck is a physician with an established medical practice. Thus, he can have had no doubt that she typically saw a wide variety of patients. In a family practice, that means that she almost certainly would be treating women, children and men as well. However, this movie plot has Fonda making himself embarrassingly jealous over Stanwyck's male patients, as if they all make passes at her and that she, like some mindless tramp with no character, would be seduced by them. That's so insulting to the doctor whom Stanwyck portrays and to all women that it's shocking that even way back in 1941 anyone could have thought it amusing. If Fonda thinks that Stanwyck is or will be a tramp now, or is so stupid as to be gullible enough to be tricked and seduced by her patients, then obviously Fonda would also have to think that Stanwyck had always been just that much of a fool. If seeing male patients now would somehow make her behave as an amoral tramp, then the obvious corollary is that she already must have been behaving as a tramp with her previous patients. In that case, it's stupid to have Fonda written as falling in love with her. He just wouldn't have respected nor trusted her from the beginning.
A second big problem, though not as bad as the first one, is that the plot has a Depression-era presumption that Fonda taking a job would rob some other man of any chance to work. Maybe that outlook was a little bit understandable in 1941 because the United States had not entered World War II yet, not till December. It was wartime manufacturing jobs which finally pulled the United States out of the last of the Depression's unemployment morass. Nevertheless, it's just very stupid and shortsighted to assume that one man's job directly causes some other man to go jobless.
Oh, yeah, Stanwyck's Edith Head wardrobe is good -- but that's not enough reason to watch this.