No Man of Her Own (1950)

★ 6.9 1h 38m IMDb

A penniless pregnant woman adopts the identity of a rich woman killed in a train crash.

No Man of Her Own

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Cast

Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck as Helen Ferguson Died 1990 · Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA Barbara Stanwyck (July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was an American actress. A film and television star, she was known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a stron...
John Lund
John Lund as Bill Harkness Died 1992 · Rochester, New York, USA John Lund (6 February 1911 - 10 May 1992) was an American film actor who is probably best remembered for his role in the film A Foreign Affair (1948), directed by Billy Wilder. Description above from...
Jane Cowl
Jane Cowl as Mrs. Harkness Died 1950 · Boston, Massachusetts, USA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Jane Cowl (December 14, 1883 - June 22, 1950) was an American film and stage actress and playwright "notorious for playing lacrymose parts". Actress Jane Russel...
Phyllis Thaxter
Phyllis Thaxter as Patrice Harkness Died 2012 · Portland, Maine, USA Phyllis Thaxter was an American stage, screen, and television actress..
Lyle Bettger
Lyle Bettger as Stephen Morley Died 2003 · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ​From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Lyle S. Bettger (February 13, 1915 – September 24, 2003) was a character actor known most for his Hollywood roles from the 1950s, typically portraying villains....
Henry O'Neill
Henry O'Neill as Mr. Harkness Died 1961 · Orange, New Jersey, USA Henry O'Neill (1891–1961) was an American film actor known for playing gray-haired fathers, lawyers, and similarly roles during the 1930s and 1940s. O'Neill began his acting career on the stage, afte...

Audience Reviews

John Chard 8/10 Feb 09, 2020
Identity it's a crisis can't you see!

No Man of Her Own is directed by Mitchell Leisen and adapted to screenplay by Sally Benson and Catherine Turney from the novel "I Married a Dead Man" written by William Irish (Cornell Woolrich. It stars Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, Jane Cowl, Henry O'Neill, Phyllis Thaxter, Richard Denning and Lyle Bettger.

Callously jilted by the man who has made her pregnant, Helen Ferguson (Stanwyck) survives a train crash and is mistaken for another woman, Patrice Harkness (Thaxter), who was killed in the crash. The woman, who she had befriended on the train, was also pregnant and recently married to a man who also died in the crash (Denning as Hugh Harkness). The rich Harkness in-laws, having never met Patrice, take who they think is Patrice into their home and even though Helen is tormented by her deceit, she spies an opportunity to give her child a grand life. But will she be found out? Will her past come to light with dire consequences?.

Film noir styles meets melodramatic verve in what is still a riveting picture, even if the implausibility of it all is hard to swallow. Stanwyck gives it the whole shebang, carrying the film on her shoulders as she hits all the right emotive beats of a double characterisation that brings guilt, shame and conflict of interests. Lund is sadly bland as the Harkness sibling love interest, but the rest of the cast do sterling work, notably Cowl as the Harkness patriarch. Cowl would pass away the year of the film's release.

From a film noir perspective it's disappointing that the filmic finale is different to that of Woolrich's novel. However, the story of a destitute unmarried woman thrown a bone by the vagaries of fate is in true noir fashions - as is the turn of events when things go dark in the last third as the past comes knocking at the door of settled bliss in the form of Bettger's oily Stephen Morley. A love story, a survivalist story, one of blackmail, deceit and murder, lots going on in a hugely enjoyable entertainment. 8/10

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