My Forbidden Past (1951) User Reviews

Bloodlines, snobbery and Southern reputations

[PudgyPandaMan · 6/10 · 22 August 2008]

No, this isn't a masterpiece of a movie. Far from it. But I didn't find it quite as horrible as some reviewers.

This movie is based on the Polan Banks novel, "Carriage". I haven't read the book so I can't comment on whether this adaptation is accurate. It does feel like there are some missing details that often get cut in an adaptation to keep a movie's running time to a modest length. However, this movie runs quite short (at 1 hour 15 minutes) and they certainly could've included more than they did.

I wasn't as confused as other reviewers about Barbara Beaurevel's (Ava Gardner) forbidden past. It involves the fact that she is Carrie Crandall's granddaughter. Mrs. Crandall is known as a "notorious" woman in New Orleans. She married a gambler who promptly left her. She had a daughter (Barbara's mother)who she then gave another name and sent to be raised in a convent in order to protect her. The attorney, Mr. Toplady, who is sent to find Barbara (in order to pass on the inheritance that has been left her) states that Mrs. Crandall would do anything to provide for her daughter. I think it is only natural to assume this meant she became a prostitute or Madame. With this being New Orleans and the fact that she hooked up with a gambler - this is not too far-fetched. Barbara's mother then met and married affluent Mr. Beaurevel (Barbara's father). What I wonder is what ever happened to Barbara's parents? Why is she in the care of her Aunt? Again, these are items probably explained in the novel but cut from the movie.

Ava is perfectly lovely as usual. There are a couple times when her acting was quite good. I liked when Mitchum's character walks away from her on the terrace at the dance. Watch Ava's very subtle but effective facial expressions (an almost undetectable raise of an eyebrow and a few lip quivers). She could've easily overacted her hurt and anger but is wonderfully subtle and yet still powerfully conveys the emotions.

I did find it hard to believe Mitchum in his occupational role as do good medical researcher - willing to work for low pay for a good cause. Its obvious he was a street kid from New York who had to gamble his way through college. Its hard to believe he would have acquired noble aspirations and not just gone after money. Plus he is such a notorious cad is most of his roles - its hard to buy his noble speech to Ava at the end - "if you do all these things you might turn out to be quite a woman." But otherwise, I do like the chemistry between the two characters.

I think there are some interesting elements to the plot - I like the unexpected event towards the end. It adds an unexpected twist. But apart from this, the dialogue itself is quite weak. My other complaint is that the musical score is rather forgettable and could've done much more to enhance the mood and feel of New Orleans and the grand ole' South. But I still think the movie is worth a look, especially for Ava.

I Love Melvyn

[writers_reign · 6/10 · 15 November 2014]

I've always found Melvyn Douglas and lookalike William Powell to be adept at light comedy with Douglas's Ninotchka cancelling out the entire Thin Man franchise but I struggle to recall Powell taking on the cad/murderer as Douglas does here and in passing leaves everyone else dead in the water with the possible exception of Lucile Watson. It's pure hoke, of course, and finds Ava Gardner living in genteel poverty with aunt Watson and cousin Douglas in 19th century New Orleans. Laughably cast medical research scientist Robert Mitchum comes to town for a stint at Tulane University (I'm not making this up) and would marry Gardner in a heartbeat (who wouldn't) but, curiously and inexplicably in thrall to the family Gardner, with her bags packed, is dissuaded from leaving with him by Douglas. In the fullness of time she inherits the thick end of a million dollars from a grandmother who apparently was no better than she should be and whose name must not be mentioned. Mitchum returns with a wife (Janis Carter) in tow - and the whole thing is a mere 70 minutes. Though set ostensibly in New Orleans for all the 'atmosphere' on show it could be Sasskatchawan. As always Gardner is ravishing and it's worth sitting through it for her alone plus several droll dialogue zingers as when, for instance, the local gotrocks with eyes to marry Gardner attempts in a subtly, polished Southern manner to buy Mitchum off, Mitchum promptly names a price - $5,000, a tidy sum in 1800 - and when the Southern gentleman is suitably bemused Mitchum adds 'We Northerners are so crass'. Hoke, yes, but also, oke on the strength of Gardner and dialogue.

Can her money get her the married man she loves?

[349th Heavy Weapons Crew · 6/10 · 16 May 2000]

I enjoyed watching the web of intrigue unfold as a young New Orleans lady in the late 1800's attempts to use her inheritance to regain the man she loves. But there are others who are and have been plotting both for and against her, and her plans go awry. I eagerly watched to learn if the man she loved would suffer for her machinations, or if she would risk her societal position to save him. Unfortunately the ending left me cold, with too many questions left unanswered and with the feeling that Robert Mitchum was miscast in the role of the doctor she loves.

Rare Mitchum/Gardner

[tpottera · 7/10 · 28 July 2002]

This is a dark, noir, B-movie. If you like the genre you shouldn't miss this one. Gardner is good as the deceitful southern belle, and Mitchum is mysterious and handsome as the doctor. Its not outstanding, but it is intriguing to see the stars together (lovers in real life) and knowing its a rare film makes it all the more interesting. Catch it on the classic movie channel.

Full-Blooded Melodrama set in the Late Nineteenth Century Deep South

[l_rawjalaurence · 6/10 · 18 December 2014]

MY FORBIDDEN PAST does not full its punches. It is a full-blooded melodrama set in a time and place where social distinctions matter. Barbara Beaurevel (Ava Gardner) and her cousin Paul (Melvyn Douglas) live in comfortable gentility with Aunt Eula (Lucile Watson). They believe in the kind of social niceties that dictate one's choice of marriage partner, as well as one's future life; those who fail to make the grade are abruptly rebuffed. Hence when Barbara falls in love with industrious yet self-made researcher Mark Lucas (Robert Mitchum), trouble is bound to occur. Robert Stevenson's film boils up to a satisfying courtroom climax in which an inevitable deus ex machina allows a happy ending to take place.

Despite the fact that the film remains relentlessly studio-bound (with only a few second unit shots denoting time and place), it makes a creditable effort of portraying a world riddled with hypocrisies, where Lucas is treated with as much disdain as the African American servant (Clarence Muse) working for the Beaurevel family. Douglas makes an eminently hissable villain with his thin pencil mustache and courtly manners, that do not prevent him from making a pass at Lucas' wife (Janis Carter) in a self-interested act of revenge for Lucas' falling in love with Barbara. Mitchum looks uncomfortable in the cloistered surroundings of a research laboratory, but becomes a formidable adversary for Douglas. Gardner doesn't have much to do, except proclaim her love for Lucas in a series of close-ups; this task she accomplishes competently. Given the constraints of her background, we cannot help but sympathize with her as she tries to escape through love.

The plot is one big cliche, but I love the performances!

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 7 September 2018]

For one thing you've got quite a bit of playing against type. Robert Mitchum as a microbiologist researcher with a profound sense of decency and honor? Melvyn Douglas as a layabout lady's man who would boink his own cousin if he thought he could enrich himself? Quite different from the bland but trustworthy best friend of the leading man he often plays. Ava Gardner may not be playing against type, but she is just so beautiful here - shiny hair, perfect bone structure, just one touch of Venus!

Dr. Mark Lucas (Mitchum), a poor researcher at Tulane, and Barbara Beaurevel (Gardner), a member of one of New Orleans' oldest, finest, and poorest families, are in love, but Barbara is always meeting him in secret. The reason is not exactly clear, unless she worries for her social reputation, but then again, what is so awful about being a medical researcher? Or maybe it is because her family wants her to marry a rich suitor. Mark goes away on a research trip for two months and comes back with a wife. This cuts Barbara to the core. Mark appears to have done this on the rebound because he has no satisfactory explanation. The wife is a cold fish who apparently would dump Mark if she found a richer or more exciting option. So why these two are together is puzzling.

Barbara wants to get Mark back, and for some reason she thinks getting her grandmother's inheritance, which has just been sitting around collecting dust for years, is the way to do that. Again, why? Mark apparently cares nothing for money. Maybe the best revenge is living well? But I digress. Barbara, with no more than her startling physical similarity to her grandmother, successfully collects her 900K inheritance from the trustee. But there is a catch. Grandma was a notorious woman. Grandma married a gambler who left her and their child for parts unknown. The insinuation is that Grandma became a prostitute or madame in New Orleans in order to get by. Like that has never happened before??? Oh the horror! So Barbara must keep her heritage and the source of her new found wealth a secret. And strangely, nobody outside of the family ever asks where the money came from.

Barbara does think she has found a way to get Mark back, and strangely enough it does require cash. But then her plan unexpectedly turns to tragedy. I'll let you watch and find out how this plays out.

I'd recommend this. I'd actually rate this at 6.5 if possible. Sure the script is moth eaten and the production code prevents the spelling out of the details of the original story, "Carriage", but Ava Gardner commands your attention as a woman scorned. It seems hard to believe, but she MUST have been scorned at one time to get the facial expressions down so pat. Melvyn Douglas injects some of his trademark wit into his largely despicable character so that he is more than just a two dimensional cliché.

Worth seeing for Ava...

[MarieGabrielle · 6/10 · 28 July 2009]

While the story meanders and wavers,and at times seems like a quick spin off of "Gone with the Wind", some of the scenes and closeups with Ava Gardner are lovely and amazing.

Robert Mitchum as a research physician studying at Tulane;Gardner the unrequited love who delivers a letter to him before he leaves to go up north. Mitchum returns to New Orleans with a new brassy blonde in tow. She is clearly an opportunist who wants Mitchum for his future fortune, unlike Ava who claims to truly love him.She uses an ill-gotten inheritance to tempt him, there is a scandal and she indeed reminds us of Scarlett O'Hara.

This film also reminds one of "Raintree County" another imitation of "Gone with the Wind" with Elizabeth Taylor as the set-piece.ThIs film though has several nice sets of Old New Orleans,the manners and customs and varied cultures,and with the lovely Gardner in several memorable shots, is well worth a look.

Just what did Ava's Grandma do that was so terrible?

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 5 October 2005]

My Forbidden Past has Ava Gardner as decadent New Orleans belle living with her great aunt Lucile Watson and her cousin Melvyn Douglas. She's got a yen for Yankee doctor Robert Mitchum who is doing research over at Tulane University. They break things off and Mitchum goes away and returns with a bride, slatternly Janis Carter.

In the meantime Ava inherits a whole bunch of money from her grandmother who left New Orleans years ago under a cloud. Just what she did is never revealed, but her name is spoken in hushed tones. Whatever she did, she sure got rich at it.

It kind of reminds me of The Road to Rio where we never do find out what those papers were that foiled the dastardly schemes of Gale Sondergaard to marry off Dorothy Lamour. As Bing concludes about the "papers" the world must never know.

This film was conceived so that Howard Hughes who was crushing out on Ava Gardner big time at that point could get her over to RKO. He paid Louis B. Mayer's price and Mayer apparently threw in Melvyn Douglas.

Melvyn Douglas knows full well what a clinker this is so he overacts outrageously in the best Snidely Whiplash tradition of screen villains. He's the best one in the film.

My Forbidden Past should come with a warning label that if you manage to sit through this melodrama because you want to find out just what Ava's forbidden past was with grandma, you will be left hanging.

A poor man's melodrama.

[dbdumonteil · 23 October 2005]

The film is much too short .A melodrama demands lavish details ,mainly when it deals with a "forbidden" past.Here Gardner's grandma's racy past is only skimmed over.Her relationship with Mitchum -not convincing as a professor-makes me think of a poor man' s "Jezebel" .And Mitchum's character's attitude does not make much sense when he come s back with a wife.Besides the ending I-hope-she-will -mend-her-ways is unworthy of a great melodrama :never Sirk,Stahl , Minnelli or Wyler would have ended one of their works that way.Ava Gardner is for me the most beautiful actress that has ever been but there are so many works to remember her,better than this one!

You'd never expect for the family black sheep to be so beautiful.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 18 November 2014]

The scandals of the old south lead to many classic novels, plays and movies, and after the triumph of "Gone With the Wind", the movies made the lives of plantation owners (both rich and broke), wealthy city residents and even those of a less than noble past a regular part of the schedule. In many ways, these characters lived much like those of mixed backgrounds in such British made classics that starred the likes of Merle Oberon, Margaret Lockwood, David Niven and James Mason. Give the audience a beautiful femme fatal, a handsome hero, and some scheming villains, and you've got the stuff that provides enough drama for years of soap opera material.

"My Forbidden Past" reminds me in many ways of the camp Republic classic "Lady For a Night" which focused on a wealthy saloon owner in Mephis who married her way into high society and became the target of some scheming in-laws. No Memphis Belle she, the beautiful Ava Gardner is the niece of a struggling New Orleans family who is bequested a fortune from her maternal grandmother, once a notorious beauty with a scandalous past. Her matriarchal aunt (Lucille Watson) is determined to keep the dead grandmother's name out of the family, and Watson's less than noble son (Melvyn Douglas) is determined to use the new fortune to restore the one he's lost in bad business dealings. He goes as far as keeping Gardner's doctor lover (Robert Mitchum) from receiving a goodbye letter she wrote to him and he leaves New Orleans, only to return years later with a beautiful wife (Janis Carter) who is quickly seduced by Douglas. The scandal leads to murder with Mitchum accused of the crime and a shocking revelation in court which threatens to destroy many lives.

Unfolding in just over 70 minutes, "My Forbidden Past" is certainly not a classic, but is definitely enjoyable. It's lavish trash, made on a medium budget, and never gives the audience time to become bored. There's a great costume ball where Mitchum and Carter are presented to New Orleans society, where Douglas's nefarious means to an end are revealed, and where Gardner's determination to win back her former lover becomes her one and only goal. Then, there's her visit to her grandmother's grave, the shock of a young boy as he realizes why she is there, and Watson's reaction to the scandal which would bring her great personal humiliation. Watson's grand dame character is both imperious and understanding, but the understanding part of her could never survive the scandal that her old world moralities has desperately tried to keep hidden. The plot twist which leads Mitchum to being accused of criminal intent is presented pretty violently, and the final courtroom scene is almost identical in revelations to the ending of "Lady For a Night".

While this will get a mixed reaction from classic film fans, you can't deny the chemistry between Gardner and Mitchum, the irony of 30's hero Douglas being so despicable here, and the lavishness of the sets, costumes and early twentieth century society where the old south strived to remain intact even though the world and history had greatly altered the way that life back in the land of cotton had moved forward since the end of the civil war some 35 years before.

Worth a glimpse for rare Janis Carter performance

[bmacv · 5/10 · 6 June 2002]

Romantic melodrama hung with Spanish moss, My Forbidden Past is so much gaudy claptrap. Taking several actors who made their names in the hot crucible of film noir and plunking them into a tired, costumed period-piece showed perverse ingenuity. The plot involves duplicitous machinations within a love...trapezoid?...in New Orleans at some vague juncture between the Surrender at Appomatox and the Guns of August, 1914.

Both Robert Mitchum and Ava Gardner, as the "good" lovers, flail around like fish out of water; the best performances come from the skunks: Melvyn Douglas, Lucile Watson and, especially, Janis Carter, as Gardner's rival (and in the same league of tough cookies; she has been called, from her relative few appearances, the "poor man's Barbara Stanwyck").

The most baffling part of the movie concerns Gardner's deceased grandmother, whose name MUST NOT BE UTTERED! Mixed blood? It's just left that she was a "notorious" woman -- what, a voodoo priestess? Her life story sounds like better watching than these silly 70 minutes.

Ava Gardner and Robert Mitchum deliver fine performances in this period piece.

[RodgerAlfordJr · 8/10 · 21 July 2009]

Ava Gardner's beauty in My Forbidden Past (as any film) is intoxicating. I had read Howard Hughes was particular about accentuating women's breast's even so far as designing bras and his handiwork shows here. Ms. Gardner & Ms. Carter (Mitchum/Mark's wife) are stunning!

I actually liked the movie because you will notice something new every time you watch it. The street people each had a song for their wares. Even the servant, the great Clarence Muse, who turned out the porch lamp hummed a tune that could be heard through the house. You got the feeling that, yes, jazz COULD be born here! There were poor of both races in the streets 'hustling' as we would say today, and Ava bought a memorial candle from a poor white kid who also sang of his wares. In what I remember of country-like Saturdays in NY ghettos in the 50s and 60s there were peddlers singing as they sold their wares through the streets of Harlem, Brooklyn and the South Bronx, be they crabs, lobsters, fruit or shaved flavored ice. So that alone gave the movie an air of realism for me. Just as the Gershwins' represented the South Carolinian enclave of Catfish Row with it's street peddlers in Porgy & Bess. Seems like a lot of minority extras got paid in this movie, too, and that kept some grits on the stove for families like mine. Mitchum's character seemed to be a guy who toughed his way up from the streets of NY to make something of himself in the world. He backed off of Ava's character because, beside standing him up before she gained her fortune, she spelled trouble which he'd already seen enough of. After the kiss he gave her in town and, after he made it clear at the ball that he would be faithful to his new wife, Ava gave the camera a look that would send a shiver down Cagney or Gable's spine. You knew she would make him feel her hurt. 'Hell hath no fury,...' said Mitchum. What wonderful actors they both were! I was just a little puzzled at why Mitchum's wife was 'putting the make' on sad old Melvyn. Vincent Price in that role I could understand. But Mel struck me as comical (of course she WAS a gold-digger so...) I guess it makes more sense in the book. I give the movie 2 thumbs up for settings and background and another thumb up for Ava's beauty (I'll find an extra thumb somewhere, she deserves it)! Mitchum's wife (Janis Carter/Corrine) wasn't bad either. Costuming was excellent! I was, although, a little perplexed at the outfit Gardner wore when she came to let Mitchum know of his wife's rendezvous with Douglas. Gaudy, almost to the degree of clownish, it seemed as though she had another stop to make that night or really thought she should '...look the part,' as Rhett said to Scarlett in Gone with the Wind, as he helped her choose the dress she wore to Ashley's birthday party. When Mitchum opens the door and she walks in he must've first thought she was Emmet Kelly wearing a torpedo bra (forgive me, Ava). One entire layer of pancake could have been removed in that lighting. Still loved the flick - especially the costumes.

Gardner's show

[petersjoelen · 7/10 · 11 February 2024]

Barbara is from a poor background but was taken into the care of her aunt, but the community is noyt allowed to know anything about her origins out of shame.

She is in love with Mark, a doctor who is leaving, but their meeting is sabotaged by her cousin.

Later Mark returns but is married to another woman, Barbara wants him back and gets the chance to do so when she inherits a large sum of money from her real mother who has died.

A soap drama full of intrigue that takes place in New Orleans, largely worth seeing because of the beautiful presence of Ava Gardner who is truly a sight to see, Mitchum also plays great as always in his stoic way.

Not a top film, but the atmosphere is beautifully depicted and the pictures are beautiful.

Mitchum and Gardner miscast in costume drama

[a_chinn · 5/10 · 22 October 2017]

Robert Mitchum and Ava Gardner make for handsome leads in this drama, but both seem out of place in this costume drama set a post-Civil War New Orleans. Gardner is spurned by Mitchum, but when she suddenly comes into wealth, she decides to use her money to win back Mitchum and exact her revenge. Mitchum is one of my favorite actors, but this is not his sort of picture. Gardner too for that matter. The leads make this film worth watching, but just barely.

Not thrilling

[jgepperson · 4/10 · 26 December 2004]

This movie is not great. Just how many boring movies did Howard Hughes make? But it does have two of the beautiful and fascinating stars of the Hollywood Golden Age: Ava Gardner and Robert Mitchum. Melvyn Douglas (who doesn't look so good in this) plays Ava's fey playboy cousin. There are a couple of good lines. The plot is slim and the movie is not long. Only 71 minutes, for those with a short attention span.

We're never told exactly what Ava's forbidden past is, but it has to do with her grandmother. Was she a prostitute? Maybe it's supposed to be ambiguous.

The man who directed it made the 1940s "Jane Eyre" with Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine and also the Disney "Mary Poppins."

With these actors, you sure would expect better.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 10 January 2013]

This film stars Ava Gardner, Robert Mitchum and Melvyn Douglas, so you'd certainly expect this to be a very good movie. Well, if that is the case, you'd be dead wrong. That's because no matter the talents of these folks, you can't overcome a terrible script...and the one for "My Forbidden Past" is pretty bad.

The film begins with Mitchum and Gardner preparing to run off to sea to be with each other. However, her family interferes and she never receives a letter from him saying he will return for her. And, since their paths don't cross for some time, when they do meet again, Mitchum is married! And, Gardner is intent on some bizarre sort of revenge--as well as to break up this marriage and have him for herself.

The biggest problem about the film is that it never is believable and the story is awfully hard to believe--and overly complicated. The bad dialog doesn't help, either. It's very hard to believe that they were able to hook good actors into being in this film--but somehow they did. Was it the money or did they hold various loved ones prisoner to force the actors to be in this bilge? I have no idea....all I know is that the film is pretty bad.

My Forbidden Past-The South Will Not Exactly Rise Again With this One **

[edwagreen · 4/10 · 22 July 2009]

Ridiculous film with Ava Gardner proving once again that with the exception of the 1951 remake of "Showboat," she was in some pretty awful films and delivered many abysmal performances as well. Unfortunately, this film is no exception to that role.

The only thing southern about Gardner here is that surname of Beaurevel. That name should have been used in "Gone With the Wind."

Robert Mitchum and Miss Gardner deliver flat performances here. If you can believe that Bob Mitchum is from Brooklyn and is now a college professor in New Orleans, good luck to you.

Melvyn Douglas plays her nasty cousin who wants to make sure that she doesn't run off with Mitchum. Lucile Watson, an excellent character actress, is along for the ride.

As for the critic who questioned what made Carrie Campbell, Gardner's grandmother such an undesirable woman, the old girl was probably some tramp in her prime. (I wonder if she rivaled Miss Brodie or Blanche Devereaux of The Golden Girls?)

Inheriting all of Grandma's money sets the film in motion for tragedy to occur. Anxious to win back Mitchum, Ms. Beaurevel encourages Cousin Melvyn to carry on with Mitchum's wife. When he does, tragedy ensues and we have an inquest. The inquest is as boring as inquests should not be. Remember what Dorothy Malone carried on at the inquest for her murdered brother in "Written on the Wind?" Nothing like that here.

The film is nothing more than a cheap rip-off of the old south. Even Scarlett O'Hara wouldn't consider tomorrow as another day for this one.

short and not sweet

[blanche-2 · 5/10 · 24 July 2009]

What were Robert Mitchm, Ava Gardner, and Melvyn Douglas doing in this film? It almost seems like a throwaway - I mean, it's 70 minutes long! Seventy minutes makes for a fairly sketchy story, which "My Forbidden Past" certainly is. It's the story of a young woman, Barbara Beaurevel (Gardner) in love with a doctor, Mark Lucas (Mitchum), who goes to South America for two months. He wants her to come along and be married on the ship, but her cousin Paul (Douglas) keeps her from doing so and never delivers the letter to Mark that says she'll wait for him. When he comes home, he has a wife (Janis Carter).

Having inherited a huge amount of money from her scandalous grandmother (I'm guessing she ran a gambling establishment and was maybe a prostitute), Barbara offers Paul $50,000 if he can seduce Mark's opportunistic wife.

I have to admit that I wasn't interested in any of these characters. Ava is beautiful, and that's about it. Hughes apparently borrowed Ava Gardner for this film. She wrote in her autobiography that he was always after her and gave her an expensive ring. She threw it out the window, only to regret it later on when she had no money. I'd say this film evens things out. Robert Mitchum didn't seem terribly interested to me, he sort of meanders through. Janis Carter is very good - beautiful and feisty. For some reason, her energy doesn't seem out of place, but Melvyn Douglas' does. I think he knew it was a bad script and just went for it full out, where Carter was still trying to build her reputation as an actress.

Disappointing.

You wish you could change channel..but there's Ava and Robert!!!

[claudja777 · 5/10 · 28 February 2005]

I saw this movie more than any other movie ever..No I'm not sick ,is just that this is a classic of private television and it's programmed at least once a month..so!The First time I saw it, I was ten,I already understood that was something absurd in the plot,like they had to invent something to take apart hot Ava and lusty Mitchum until the end and so there's all that absurd affair between his ugly cousin and the Rita Hayworth of the poor man wife.The lines of Mitchum are one more cynic than the other (not for nothing he was Mitchum!),Ava is beautiful ,the clothes of the two girls too and..that's all!This movie makes really no sense .I'll give a 5,just because of How am I affectioned to it,but it's a clear 3

Doesn't live up to the hype

[HotToastyRag · 4/10 · 27 July 2020]

If you're looking for sparks between Ava Gardner and Robert Mitchum because of their backstage affair during My Forbidden Past, you're going to have a tough time finding them. I couldn't help feeling Ava got too involved in her character and blew their liaison out of proportion.

In the film, they have a little romance, but when she's driven out of town due to a scandal in her past, she sends a message for Bob to come with her. Ava's conniving cousin, Melvyn Douglas, intercepts the message and never delivers it, so she thinks Bob doesn't love her anymore. Years later, when she returns to town, Bob is married to Janis Carter. Ava can't accept his choice, and she becomes determined to rekindle their affair, no matter how much damage she does in the process. This isn't a movie to watch if you want to see her play the nice girl. And it's not a movie to watch if you want to see Robert Mitchum with passion.

The star of the show is Melvyn Douglas. He managed to have a decades-long career, transitioning from leading man to old man from the 1930s to the 1970s. During this time period, he was exploring the role of villain, and as you can see, he's extremely good at it. If you liked him in this, check out The Great Sinner.

Swamp Suckin Time

[KingCoody · 13 October 2003]

Like Saratoga Trunk another New Orleans set Melodrama this flick has a good looking star couple, with the heroine just having a flavoring of "exotic Blood". But at least there is the hint of an action sequence in that Warner Bros. misstep,this flick makes you wish some pirates, Redcoats, Union cavalry on a rampage were in this one to wake it up.

Entertaining and awful -- yet another bomb in the Ava oevrue.

[Handlinghandel · 2/10 · 5 June 2002]

Ava Gardner is possibly the only major Hollywood star ever to appear in such a vast proprtion =of terrible movies. She's always beautiful and she was in maybe three good ones. But what a bunch of turkeys! It's sad, because she was one of teh great beauties of Hollywood history, a decent actres, and a likable presence always.

Some might say, "What about 'Show Boat'?" Well, the answer is: Take a look at the gorgeous original, with Helen Morhgan in the role Ava tries hard to do well by, and the great, great Irene Dunne as its star.

my forbidden past

[mossgrymk · 5/10 · 2 January 2023]

Standard Southernoid shtick, (kinda like "Little Foxes" with a pre frontal lobotomy). The only thing that stands out, as discerning previous reviewers have noted, is the delightfully decadent villainy of Melvyn Douglas, serving to remind me of what a truly fine actor he is. I mean, the guy can do drama and comedy, smarm and charm, Brit or Creole or German or Texan, and, like Lancaster, he didn't get really good until he was in his sixties. Next to him Ava is a lovely, seductive afterthought and even Mitchum, as per usual when he's in a crappy movie, decides the wisest course is to hightail it to the nearest phone booth (think there's one on the corner of Bourbon and Bienville) for phone in purposes. Solid C.

Soap opera of the Victorian era.

[jordondave-28085 · 5/10 · 15 April 2023]

(1951) My Forbidden Past PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA

Adapted from a novel "Carriage Entrance" by Polan Banks that has wealthy socialite Barbara Beaurevel (Ava Gardner) meeting an old doctrine flame, Mark Lucas (Robert Mitchum) and she attempts to wreck his life after finding out he has already been married to Corinne (Janis Carter). Motivating Barbara to involve her cousin, Paul (Melvyn Douglas) into her scheming affairs.

Reminiscent of the Victorian era soap opera movie ever made, which at times it does not even know what it wants. And it's not like going to motivate me to read the novel that is based on either.

two stars generating limited heat

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 1 February 2024]

It's late 19th century. Dr. Mark Lucas (Robert Mitchum) and Barbara Beaurevel (Ava Gardner) plan to marry without telling her snooty New Orleans family. Her aunt Eula is setting her up with another suitor. She is prevented from marrying Mark. After inheriting a fortune, she intends to get Mark back, but he returns from a trip married to Corinne (Janis Carter).

This feels like a romance novel brought to cinematic melodrama. One certainly hopes for more heat with these two Hollywood icons. Janis Carter is nothing to sneeze at either. Sadly, this feels a little stale and old timey. Certainly, the time period is not helping. I just don't care about these characters either way. I'm not rooting for them together or apart.