Sans Lendemain (aka There's No Tomorrow) (1939)

A widow (Edwige Feuillere) is reduced to working as a topless dancer in a disreputable nightclub in order to support her young son (Michel Francois). When a former love (Georges Rigaud), now a successful doctor, reenters her life, she hides her present life and puts on a charade of being more successful than she is. But maintaining her secret won't come easy or without a cost. Directed by Max Ophuls (LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN). This high class soap opera didn't quite work for me. I found the woman's deception disturbing. If the man (Rigaud) really loved her, her present situation wouldn't matter. Her lying only makes matters worse and gets her deeper into trouble with each lie. During his glossy melodrama period at Universal, Douglas Sirk remade several films that were popular in the 1930s (IMITATION OF LIFE, MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, WHEN TOMMOROW COMES) and it's too bad, he didn't remake this one. It could have used his critical eye while supplying the lush melodramatic ironies of a woman descending into a hell of her own making but not choosing. With Daniel Lecourtois, Mady Berry, Paul Azais and Georges Lannes.