Huston’s second film, 1942’s In This Our Life seems to be somewhat lost to history, and, coming after The Maltese Falcon, that’s understandable. I’m not sure what the prevailing mood was in the ‘40s, but if a director were to offer a similar follow-up today, I imagine that more than a few critics would likely be salivating to label him a one-hit wonder.
That’s not to say that In This Our Life is a bad movie, it’s just okay. The story, adapted from the Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel about two sisters, one good, Roy (Olivia de Havilland), one bad, Stanley (Bette Davis). The significance of their masculine names is unclear.
Roy is married to Peter, a doctor, while Stanley’s engaged to Craig, a lawyer. However Peter’s carrying on an affair with Stanley. The night before her wedding, Stanley elopes with Peter, who subsequently divorces Roy, leaving her and Craig to find comfort with each other, and the two eventually get married.
So, Stanley and Peter = bad; Roy and Craig = good. Rounding out the dichotomies are William, the girls’ racist, hard-drinking uncle, who harbors a rather disturbing crush on and shares an incestually suggestive relationship with his bad niece (the scene where she greets him with a flurry of tickles and he mentions the “present” in his pocket is only one among many that tiptoe the censor’s pen), and Asa, the girls’ kindly father.
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