My Reputation ** (1946, Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Warner Anderson) – Classic Movie Review 13,650

Warner Bros’ 1946 American romantic drama film My Reputation stars Barbara Stanwyck as an upper-class widow whose romance with an army officer causes trouble.

Director Curtis Bernhardt’s 1946 Warner Bros American romantic drama film My Reputation is based on Clare Jaynes’s 1942 novel Instruct my Sorrows, and stars Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, George Anderson, along with Lucile Watson, John Ridgely, Eve Arden, Jerome Cowan, Esther Dale, Bobby Cooper and Scotty Beckett.

Recently widowed Jessica “Jess” Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck) finds tongues wagging when she steps out with new beaux, Major Scott Landis (George Brent) and lawyer Frank Everett (Warner Anderson) after rejecting the advances of old friend George Van Orman (Jerome Cowan). The upper-class widow’s romance with the army officer causes trouble with her gossipy friends, her domineering mother Mary (Lucile Watson) and her young sons, 14-year-old Keith (Bobby Cooper) and 12-year-old Kim (Scotty Beckett).

My Reputation is a flimsy, sudsy soap-opera concoction, with a gossamer script by Catherine Turney, though Stanwyck sparkles as usual, plus there’s good support from Lucile Watson as the mother and Eve Arden as her best pal Ginna Abbott, in this adaptation of Clare Jaynes’s novel Instruct my Sorrows.

It is not much of a story and not much of a film, but James Wong Howe’s black and white photography and Max Steiner’s music score are fine assets, along with Edith Head’s costumes. Thank goodness for old-time studio craftsmanship, though their choices of subject weren’t always the best.

Release date: January 25, 1946.

The film was a hit for Warner Bros, earning $4,001,000 worldwide against a budget of $1,106,000, though in the longer term it hardly did Stanwyck’s reputation a lot of favours.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,650

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