I Met My Love Again (1938)

The film opens in 1927 when a nerdy student (Henry Fonda) and a willful girl (Joan Bennett) get engaged. But she jilts him for a sophisticated writer (Alan Marshal) and they marry and go to live in Paris. Some 10 years later, she returns to the small town as a widow with a young daughter. Can their romance be reignited or has time changed them too much? Based on the novel SUMMER LIGHTNING by Allene Corliss and directed by Joshua Logan (PICNIC) and Arthur Ripley (THUNDER ROAD). Alas, this is a dreary romancer without a spark of passion. If you're going to have a love story about two old lovers reuniting, we need to see what pulls them together and keeps that bond connected. We can see why Bennett jilted Fonda, he's a dull professor who's no fun at all. What we don't see is why she's still attracted to him after she's grown up. As a dull professor, Fonda is just, well ..... dull. If the role had been played by, say, Gary Cooper or Cary Grant, we might have got the connection. With Dame May Whitty, Tim Holt, Dorothy Stickney, Henry Brandon and Louise Platt.