This Is My Love (1954)

That was an excellent one.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Directed by Stuart Heisler {The Glass Key} and starring Linda Darnell {Vida Dove}, Faith Domergue {Evelyn Dove/Myer}, Dan Duryea {Murray Myer} & Rick Jason {Glenn Harris}, This Is My Love is a Noirish potboiler dealing in sexual repression, deception, heartbreak, sibling strife and murder. All of which sounds like the film should be a most potent piece of work, sadly the film never rises above being a ponderously paced story that's devoid of a blood pumping heart.It's a shame this vastly underachieves as a drama since the performances of the three principal actors are very strong, especially Darnell, who as Vida Dove neatly blends a smouldering sexuality with a tinted confusion of the life she is leading. Based on Hugh Brooke's story, Fear Has Black Wings, This Is My Love is filmed in Pathécolor and theatrically released out of RKO. Never released on DVD and mostly forgotten by all but Darnell/Duryea purists, Heisler's film hints at being far more intriguing than it actually is. It's not so much that one finds themselves waiting for a plot spark that never arrives, it's the overriding feeling that the finale here will be a let down. The very nature of the piece telegraphs where these characters will end up, thus rendering the ending the damp squib it ultimately is.It's a testament to Darnell, Domergue and Duryea that they have given the characters some substance, managing to hold the viewers attention span by way of their craft. One scene as Darnell's Vida shouts down at the wheelchair bound Murray is worth sitting thru the movie for. But it's a rare moment of heat raising as the tepid screenplay, staid direction and the woefully bland performance of Rick Jason swamp any chance of movie ignition. There's some value with Franz Waxman's score, and Connie Russell popping in to sing the title song is a bonus. But much like the sisters Vida & Evelyn Dove in the picture, I too felt boxed in, and that is something I'm sure the makers wasn't aiming for. 4/10

Linda Darnell stars as Vida, a sexually repressed spinster living with her vivacious sister Faith Domergue and Faith's crippled husband Dan Duryea in this quasi-noir romantic potboiler. Vida's a dreamy small-town Emma Bovary with unrealistic writing aspirations and a boring beau she barely tolerates and when handsome Rick Jason comes to the family diner where she and her sister work, he asks her out. Vida ruins every chance for happiness she ever had and this time is no exception because her self-pitying and depressing personality drives him into the arms of her married sister. This in turn tears the heart out of Duryea who's deeply in love with Faith but only half a man thanks to a terrible accident that ended their professional dancing career. He's become an embittered male shrew who delights in torturing Vida and this cuckold blames her for his wife's infidelity in a particularly vicious fight which drives Vida to go running for the medicine chest poison. Clever -and no slouch in the vindictive department herself- Vida's dark side sees a way to get even with Duryea and frame Domergue for his murder at the same time...Based on the novel "Fear Has Black Wings" and filmed in garish color by producer Allan Dowling and released by RKO, THIS IS MY LOVE comes as a nice little sleeper surprise for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Miss Linda Darnell. Comparing Linda to Bette Davis may sound amazing but it's awfully hard not to see what I mean. Darnell's Vida is a cross between Charlotte Vale of NOW VOYAGER and the ruthless Regina Giddons of THE LITTLE FOXES -especially when Vida just listens as Duryea dies screaming from the poison she gave him. All three protagonists are only half-alive in a claustrophobic house of hate, recrimination and regret which boils over, not unlike WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?. Linda Darnell does excellent work here. Bloated but still youthful, she encodes her character with the beauty Vida must have had in the bloom of youth and layers it with pent-up resentments seething just below the surface. One couldn't ask for more from the lady. This portrayal shows what Linda learned after 15 years in the fabulous Dream Factory called the Studio System where beauties like Hayworth, Tierney, Turner and Lamarr also learned to act in due time. Many feel A LETTER TO THREE WIVES is Darnell's best but some of the characterization depends on the lady's hard gloss/hard-bitten glamor but her Vida in THIS IS MY LOVE doesn't and she's also given stellar support. Alternately evoking hatred and sympathy in the audience, the much beloved character Dan Duryea comes perilously close to going over the top -but just try and look away. Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose", Faith Domergue, isn't too bad trying to please everyone while making the best of a god-awful life and when a little happiness comes her way in the form of Rick Jason, it's hard to begrudge her. Cast and audience are torn as sympathy must go to Linda's Vida also. Duryea was Vida's beau back in the day until Faith took him and after living together for years, something wretched was bound to happen. Rick Jason is OK in a Tom Tryon kind of way as the tall, dark Adonis who hits town and ignites the fuse. Great as slice-of-life Americana, the film has 1950's vignettes galore; there's a few colorful dance palace scenes as Jason takes both sisters out for a whirl and glimpses of every-day Americans working/living at the diner. Stand-out is an old biddy with nothing better to do than come in, order apple-pie and eavesdrop on other people's love lives.Highly recommended. You'll see why after you see it.Jerry "Leave It To Beaver" Mathers, his look-alike sister Susie Mathers, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer ("The Little Rascals"), William Hopper (Hedda's son and "Perry Mason" regular) and Ed Wood Jr.'s frequent leading lady Dolores Fuller all appear in small roles.Linda, as most fans know, died as a result of burns sustained in a fire in 1965 and Dan Duryea died of cancer in 1968. Faith died from cancer in 1999 (in England) and Rick Jason shot himself in 2000.

Warning: possible spoilers.I hope that anyone contemplating watching this film does not judge it solely on the weight of the other review. It is a compelling and interesting tale, one you would like if you were a fan of films such as Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and the like."Darnell has a fiance, but she keeps putting marriage off so she can write her fantasies" is what she would have most people believe. The fact is that she does not love poor Eddie, so therefore how can she marry him? She was once in love with Murray, her sister's cantankerous paraplegic husband and she went with Eddie as if to soften the blow of losing Murray, to show everyone that she was fine."the same song is played far too many times as Rick tries to make love to Darnell" - Rick never tries it on Darnell. He kisses her once but only the once because she pushes him away. And after that, he meets her sister Evelyn and it becomes apparent that she is the girl he loves, not Vida (Darnell). If anything, he uses Vida to get to Evelyn!The character Vida is quite a fascinating one. She seems such a sweet and shy little thing and even when she reveals her dark side by filling Murray's medecine bottle with poison you're on her side. She's just had a verbal war with him where all he could do was laugh in her face as she broke down, and when she sits on her bed with a bottle of sleeping pills, you really worry she's going to off herself - who'd blame her?I would highly recommend this movie to anyone, whether you are a fan of any of the actors or otherwise. I had never even seen any of the 5 leads in any of their other films (to my recollection), and I still thoroughly enjoyed it. If you don't mind a complex drama where you have to use your mind a little, then guaranteed you'll enjoy it also.

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** I hate to say any film is terrible, but this one almost fits the bill. Linda Darnell and Faith Domergue are sisters; Darnell single but engaged, and Domergue married to Dan Duryea, a dancer who was in a bad car accident and is now a paraplegic. They own a restaurant, where all the plot lines conveniently converge.Everything about the film screams early 50's potboiler/soap opera, and everything in the film is written to conveniently accommodate the plotline, which was outdated even then: Duryea was a fabulous, sexy dancer (which was the only reason Domergue could find to love him), but is now confined to a wheelchair and vents his anger on everyone he sees, setting up the plot point for her to have an affair; Darnell has a fiance, but she keeps putting marriage off so she can write her fantasies; Darnell's fiance brings a friend, Rick Jason, to meet her, and then just happens to go off and leave the two of them alone numerous times, pointedly making references about how the friend is going to steal his girl; the same song is played far too many times as Rick tries to make love to Darnell; the list of coincidences just goes on and on.Rick Jason gives a thoughtful, restrained performance in only his 3rd film role, and is the one good thing about this movie. Everyone else in the film seems to have gotten their Masters degree from the Bill Shatner School of Overacting, and passed all their classes with flying colors. And, in a film crowded with hamminess, Dan Duryea wins the award for most flagrant, over-the-top performance in any film, ever; he yells, grimaces, convulses, accuses his wife of infidelity in a shrill falsetto voice, uses his wheelchair to dance to a sonata while everyone watches in intense discomfort (the audience included), and does god knows what else to make the film a virtual nightmare to endure.If you are a fan of any of these actors, and especially Jason, you can probably sit through this film and enjoy it on a minimal level. Anyone else will never make it, and if they do they deserve an award of their own. It's unavailable on video or anywhere else, which is a blessing in disguise and is completely understandable once you see the film.