No Sad Songs For Me (1950)

A wife (Margaret Sullavan) learns she has terminal cancer with a diagnosis of ten months to live. She keeps the news from her husband (Wendell Corey) and daughter (Natalie Wood) as she comes to terms with her own mortality and securing a future for them without her. When her husband has a flirtation with a co-worker (Viveca Lindfors), instead putting an end to it, she sees that this might actually be a positive thing. Based on the novel by Ruth Southard and directed by Rudolph Mate (WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE). While the plot sounds like a typical tearjerker, it's surprisingly unsentimental and this is mostly due to Sullavan's (in her last film role) performance which is without self pity and based on a more reflective attitude. She doesn't even get a death scene, she dies off screen. Neither does the film condemn her husband's affair, it's all surprisingly so "adult". The lovely Oscar nominated score is by George Duning. With John McIntire, Jeanette Nolan, Ann Doran and Myron Healey.