“Stahl pretty much owns the ‘other woman’ melodrama, claiming the title with the 1932 hit BACK STREET and defending it with this extraordinary 1939 weepie. Charming and mysterious Charles Boyer comes on strong to waitress and union firebrand Irene Dunne, but their turbulent emotions are subsumed in a life-threatening hurricane that sequesters the lovers in the loft of a flooded church. Stahl has no peers as a director of the environment, and he orchestrates wind and rain effects to take the melodrama from a whisper to a scream over the movie’s amazing middle half-hour. Best known for the understated pathos of the final Boyer-Dunne dinner scene, the film co-stars Barbara O’Neil as the immovable object that collides with the irresistible force of the love story.” –Dan Sallitt
–Wednesday, January 28 at 7:00 and Saturday, January 31 at 4:30.