This is My Affair

Attractive Performers and a Glossy Production Saddled with a Mediocre Screeplay:
"This is My Affair" is a big budget "A Class" 20th Century Fox melodrama that highlights how star power and a high quality production cannot mask or make up for a hackneyed screenplay. Apparently,Fox Production Chief Darryl Zanuck didn't think that a first rate scenario for this film was necessary because in 1937 Robert Taylor on loan to Fox from MGM was in the first flush of his stardom and so hot at the box office #3 in the 1937 box office polls that the public would go to see him in anything he starred in. The movies title is a "teaser" as Taylor and Stanwcyck were a "mega-star couple" rumored to be considering marriage and were very high profile and publicized all over the movie magazines. The storyline set in circa 1900 with Taylor Lt Richard Perry volunteering to go undercover to infiltrate a gang of bank robbers via a special commission from President W. McKinley Frank Conroy with only the president knowing of this secret assignment and his identity change. Barbara...

Lavish Production, Great Fun
This movie teams Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck for the second time. Their first film, "His Brother's Wife" made a lot of money and Fox wanted to cash in with "This Is My Affair." Stanwyck and Taylor were romantically involved at this point and would marry a couple of years later. The film follows a Navy Lieutenant who served heroically under Admiral Dewey at Manila. At a White House soiree he is tapped by President McKinley to catch a gang of bank robbers who are destabilizing the economy. He does this by going underground as a thief who joins the gang. The costumes,sets and 1900 era dialogue are convincing. Stanwyck can't sing so she probably shouldn't have tried. However, she looks great and is believable as the tough gang moll who falls for the "criminal" Taylor. Taylor, of course, can't help looking wonderful although he is not photographed as well as he was at MGM. The romantic scenes are especially convincing. The plot is full of less than believable twists and turns...

Oldie Movie Great
If you are a Barbara Stanwyck/Robert Taylor fan, you'll love this movie. I'm glad more of these classics are being released. You don't see stars or scripts like this any more.

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