A Lost Lady (1934)

When her fiance (Phillip Reed) is shot to death on the eve of their wedding, a young woman (Barbara Stanwyck) vows to never love again. So she enters a platonic marriage with a much older man (Frank Morgan). But when a handsome aviator (Ricardo Cortez) enters her life, she finds that her vow will be impossible to keep. Based on the novel by Willa Cather (previously filmed in 1924) and directed by Alfred E. Green (THE JOLSON STORY). The film bears very little resemblance to Cather's novel which is about the erosion of the American West. On its own terms, it's an agreeable programmer. The wonderful thing about so many 1930s programmers is how compact they often are in their storytelling with running times between one hour and one hour and 20 minutes. This one is one hour and one minute and not an ounce of fat. As always, Stanwyck is wonderful (I would be hard pressed to think of a bad Stanwyck performance), one of the most natural of the 1930s actresses. With Lyle Talbot and Raffaela Ottiano.