Nora Prentiss

Dr. Richard Talbot's teenage daughter runs to the kitchen window one morning and joyfully declares "It's Spring. Something's stirring." Later, when the good doctor is applying a bandage to the injured knee of a shapely chanteuse named Nora Prentiss, we are left in little doubt as to what that 'something' is!

This film is yet another variant on the theme of 'amour fou' which is capable of raising one to the heights and dragging one to the depths. As this tragic but highly implausible tale unfolds, credibilty is stretched to the utmost but Vincent Sherman somehow succeeds in covering most of the plotholes. Mr. Sherman is an extremely capable director and he is fortunate here to have Anton Grot's production design, the evocative cinematography of James Wong Howe and Franz Waxman's dramatic score.

It is customary to dismiss actor Kent Smith as being rather bland but he surprised me in this and engages our sympathy as the hapless doctor whose slow descent into the abyss is painful to behold. Suffice to say this is essentially a vehicle for Ann Sheridan whose role was expanded by order of Jack Warner. What can one say of Miss Sheridan? She combined oodles of 'oomph' with what one critic has described as 'no nonsense pragmatism.' She left us far too early but is still here thanks to the magic of film.