Jesus, A Man Of Her Own- With Barbara Stanwyck’s “No Man Of Her Own” In Mind

DVD Review

No Man Of Her Own, starring Barbara Stanwyck, 1951  

From The Pen Of Bart Webber

“Boy some of the plot lines in these old black and white film noir type movies that I was addicted to as a kid in the late 1950s, early 1960s when I would go to the Strand Theater over on Lipton Street in back of Levitt’s Department Store either by myself or with Larry Jeffers who was also addicted although he was not a guy that I hung around with otherwise defy belief,” Sam Eaton mentioned to Ralph Morris one night at Jimmy’s Grille in Boston. Ralph was in one of his periodic trips to town to see Sam and a few other guys from their old political days now that they all were more or less retired and so finally had time to reminisce about the old days, or anything that popped into their heads.  

Lately Sam, aside from some blistering commentary about the endless wars of the American government which was the cement that glued this group together since they all were members in good standing of Veterans for Peace which as the name indicates stand forthwith against the last decade or so of catastrophic American foreign policy beginning with Afghanistan and Iraq, regaled one and all with his new “hobby,” or really an old one that he now had time to put some time into watching old time black and white films, mostly film noir, via his subscription to Netflix. The film that Sam was referring to in his conversation directed at Ralph was Barbara Stanwyck’s No Man Of Her Own which sounds innocuous enough but which turned on a very funny dime as the plot unfolded. Ralph, not particularly a movie buff but expressing interest in what Sam had to say since he usually made the old gang laugh, asked Sam why he was so worked up about this one when usually he would just comment on the film and let it go. That was all that Sam needed to egg him on.    

“Okay, now this Barbara Stanwyck who was a dish in her time and did some great work in films like Double Indemnity where the plot really had you going and where she really was a femme fatale  from the word “go” and had this insurance guy like putty in her hands is supposed to be this woman scorned. Scorned by this bad ass guy, Morley, a guy who was nothing but a grifter, a two-bit guy who always had an edge on, was always looking for the main chance. See Barbara, her name was Helen in the film, though had two problems, one she was in love with this slug and second she had given into him in a moment of passion and was as the film opened about eight months pregnant, very pregnant, very pregnant without a wedding ring in 1950s America. But our boy Morley had already tired of Helen, who seemed like some kind of out of her depths farm girl, and had moved onto faster company, a blonde who looked like she wouldn’t take any guff from our boy, not without some cost. All that part seemed probable, guys giving the girl they just seduced the air happens all the time, kid’s stuff.                       

Here’s where the thing starts to fall apart plot-wise though. This Morley springs for a train ticket for Helen to go to Frisco town and work out her troubles there. Other than the ticket she has no dough for anything to eat and so on the train she looks like something out of displaced person camp, strictly from hunger. Then this couple, this couple where the wife is also pregnant but with a wedding ring in 1950s America which also happens all the time, takes pity on her, feeds her and some kind of bond grew between the two women. The wife gives Helen her wedding ring to hold for a minute while she is freshening up in the Ladies’ room. Then with the ring safely on her finger the train slides over a cliff, or runs off the track anyway. Runs off the track and kills the couple but leaves Helen while severely injured still alive and the baby she is carrying too. A boy as it turned out.  

Of course now that the screenwriter and director have gone to the effort of putting that ring on her finger everybody from the hospital staff, and this is key, to the guy in that dead couple’s wealthy parents think that she is that dead wife. Want to bring her home with the baby as a lasting remembrance of their dead son. Helen balks a little but with no dough, no husband (no man of her own of the title), and no respectable ring on her finger if she takes the one she has off she decides to take the ticket, take the ride. The family embraces her like one of their own. 

Problem is every time somebody mentions something about her and their son, something that she should know, she is clueless although nobody seems bothered by that. Nobody except Bill, the dead husband’s brother who looks at her askance every time she makes a faux pas. Still he gives her a pass, even letting her into the family will just like she was family. See this Bill is in love with Helen if you can feature that. Now Barbara Stanwyck was definitely a looker in something like Double Indemnity but in this role she is well motherly if you want to know and why a good looking guy would flip for her seemed odd. But there you have it the guy is going to be tested on that love in any case.   

Morley, or guys like Morley are always looking for the main chance and he was not different here than when he gave her the walking papers. Now that she is on easy street he wants in on the dough and is not particular how he gets it, is even willing to wait as long as he gets his long large. She balks or tries to when he forces her to marry him to protect her child’s future and the family’s. But in the end she knows that the only way to get rid of this snake is to Dial M for murder. And she goes to his office and puts a bullet right where it hurts. In the meantime Bill is frantic about her whereabouts and finally winds up at that Morley office right after she wastes Morley. Here’s where Bill proved his colors though he helped get rid of Morley’s body, threw it off a train trestle, nice touch. Of course a guy doing a good deed and a gal who is just protecting her child can’t go under, not in a 1950s movie, no matter how much they try and so in the end they are exonerated. Seems Helen didn’t kill Morley. He had already been killed by that blonde who meant business and who got miffed when Morley tossed her over for Helen’s riches. Figures that there would be a blonde involved somewhere. But you see what I mean about how it doesn’t hold together?

Everybody nodded in agreement and then Ralph chirped up-“What don’t you look those odd-ball plot lines on Wikipedia before you order them from Netflix.” Yeah, Ralph good idea.