Linda Darnell stars as Vida, a sexually repressed spinster living with her vivacious sister Faith Domergue and Faith's crippled husband Dan Duryea in this quasi-noir romantic potboiler. Vida's a dreamy small-town Emma Bovary with unrealistic writing aspirations and a boring beau she barely tolerates and when handsome Rick Jason comes to the family diner where she and her sister work, he asks her out. Vida ruins every chance for happiness she ever had and this time is no exception because her self-pitying and depressing personality drives him into the arms of her married sister. This in turn tears the heart out of Duryea who's deeply in love with Faith but only half a man thanks to a terrible accident that ended their professional dancing career. He's become an embittered male shrew who delights in torturing Vida and this cuckold blames her for his wife's infidelity in a particularly vicious fight which drives Vida to go running for the medicine chest poison. Clever -and no slouch in the vindictive department herself- Vida's dark side sees a way to get even with Duryea and frame Domergue for his murder at the same time...
Based on the novel "Fear Has Black Wings" and filmed in garish color by producer Allan Dowling and released by RKO, THIS IS MY LOVE comes as a nice little sleeper surprise for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Miss Linda Darnell. Comparing Linda to Bette Davis may sound amazing but it's awfully hard not to see what I mean. Darnell's Vida is a cross between Charlotte Vale of NOW VOYAGER and the ruthless Regina Giddons of THE LITTLE FOXES -especially when Vida just listens as Duryea dies screaming from the poison she gave him. All three protagonists are only half-alive in a claustrophobic house of hate, recrimination and regret which boils over, not unlike WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?. Linda Darnell does excellent work here. Bloated but still youthful, she encodes her character with the beauty Vida must have had in the bloom of youth and layers it with pent-up resentments seething just below the surface. One couldn't ask for more from the lady. This portrayal shows what Linda learned after 15 years in the fabulous Dream Factory called the Studio System where beauties like Hayworth, Tierney, Turner and Lamarr also learned to act in due time. Many feel A LETTER TO THREE WIVES is Darnell's best but some of the characterization depends on the lady's hard gloss/hard-bitten glamor but her Vida in THIS IS MY LOVE doesn't and she's also given stellar support. Alternately evoking hatred and sympathy in the audience, the much beloved character Dan Duryea comes perilously close to going over the top -but just try and look away. Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose", Faith Domergue, isn't too bad trying to please everyone while making the best of a god-awful life and when a little happiness comes her way in the form of Rick Jason, it's hard to begrudge her. Cast and audience are torn as sympathy must go to Linda's Vida also. Duryea was Vida's beau back in the day until Faith took him and after living together for years, something wretched was bound to happen. Rick Jason is OK in a Tom Tryon kind of way as the tall, dark Adonis who hits town and ignites the fuse. Great as slice-of-life Americana, the film has 1950's vignettes galore; there's a few colorful dance palace scenes as Jason takes both sisters out for a whirl and glimpses of every-day Americans working/living at the diner. Stand-out is an old biddy with nothing better to do than come in, order apple-pie and eavesdrop on other people's love lives.
Highly recommended. You'll see why after you see it.
Jerry "Leave It To Beaver" Mathers, his look-alike sister Susie Mathers, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer ("The Little Rascals"), William Hopper (Hedda's son and "Perry Mason" regular) and Ed Wood Jr.'s frequent leading lady Dolores Fuller all appear in small roles.
Linda, as most fans know, died as a result of burns sustained in a fire in 1965 and Dan Duryea died of cancer in 1968. Faith died from cancer in 1999 (in England) and Rick Jason shot himself in 2000.
Based on the novel "Fear Has Black Wings" and filmed in garish color by producer Allan Dowling and released by RKO, THIS IS MY LOVE comes as a nice little sleeper surprise for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Miss Linda Darnell. Comparing Linda to Bette Davis may sound amazing but it's awfully hard not to see what I mean. Darnell's Vida is a cross between Charlotte Vale of NOW VOYAGER and the ruthless Regina Giddons of THE LITTLE FOXES -especially when Vida just listens as Duryea dies screaming from the poison she gave him. All three protagonists are only half-alive in a claustrophobic house of hate, recrimination and regret which boils over, not unlike WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?. Linda Darnell does excellent work here. Bloated but still youthful, she encodes her character with the beauty Vida must have had in the bloom of youth and layers it with pent-up resentments seething just below the surface. One couldn't ask for more from the lady. This portrayal shows what Linda learned after 15 years in the fabulous Dream Factory called the Studio System where beauties like Hayworth, Tierney, Turner and Lamarr also learned to act in due time. Many feel A LETTER TO THREE WIVES is Darnell's best but some of the characterization depends on the lady's hard gloss/hard-bitten glamor but her Vida in THIS IS MY LOVE doesn't and she's also given stellar support. Alternately evoking hatred and sympathy in the audience, the much beloved character Dan Duryea comes perilously close to going over the top -but just try and look away. Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose", Faith Domergue, isn't too bad trying to please everyone while making the best of a god-awful life and when a little happiness comes her way in the form of Rick Jason, it's hard to begrudge her. Cast and audience are torn as sympathy must go to Linda's Vida also. Duryea was Vida's beau back in the day until Faith took him and after living together for years, something wretched was bound to happen. Rick Jason is OK in a Tom Tryon kind of way as the tall, dark Adonis who hits town and ignites the fuse. Great as slice-of-life Americana, the film has 1950's vignettes galore; there's a few colorful dance palace scenes as Jason takes both sisters out for a whirl and glimpses of every-day Americans working/living at the diner. Stand-out is an old biddy with nothing better to do than come in, order apple-pie and eavesdrop on other people's love lives.
Highly recommended. You'll see why after you see it.
Jerry "Leave It To Beaver" Mathers, his look-alike sister Susie Mathers, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer ("The Little Rascals"), William Hopper (Hedda's son and "Perry Mason" regular) and Ed Wood Jr.'s frequent leading lady Dolores Fuller all appear in small roles.
Linda, as most fans know, died as a result of burns sustained in a fire in 1965 and Dan Duryea died of cancer in 1968. Faith died from cancer in 1999 (in England) and Rick Jason shot himself in 2000.