This is a very nice little movie that showed Claudette Colbert and John Payne to great advantage as two young teachers who, in 1916, meet in a small mid-western town, teaching at a high school. They fall in love, and we watch the romance blossom into a marriage - the entire effect helped by the nostalgia of a by-gone, simpler era. Parallelling the story we have the story of a young boy that goes to the school and is taught by both Colbert and Payne.
The film is set up with it's heart (the romance) surrounded by a more recent story set in 1940, at the Republican Presidential Convention (a fictional version of the convention). Colbert is there to see the young boy student, who has now grown up. It is not until the film ends that we understand who she is visiting with. And it is not until the conclusion of the film that we get the bittersweet portion of the romance.
The film is very simple, and it's final element for success is that Payne and Colbert had terrific chemistry together. Ironically enough it would be their only film together (one wishes they had done a second film but that was not in the cards for some reason). Also ironically, it's total success should be compared with the comparative failure of TOMORROW IS FOREVER, wherein Orson Welles and Colbert both perform their roles well (in characters very like Payne's and Colbert's here) but lack the spark to make that trickier story more believable.
The film is set up with it's heart (the romance) surrounded by a more recent story set in 1940, at the Republican Presidential Convention (a fictional version of the convention). Colbert is there to see the young boy student, who has now grown up. It is not until the film ends that we understand who she is visiting with. And it is not until the conclusion of the film that we get the bittersweet portion of the romance.
The film is very simple, and it's final element for success is that Payne and Colbert had terrific chemistry together. Ironically enough it would be their only film together (one wishes they had done a second film but that was not in the cards for some reason). Also ironically, it's total success should be compared with the comparative failure of TOMORROW IS FOREVER, wherein Orson Welles and Colbert both perform their roles well (in characters very like Payne's and Colbert's here) but lack the spark to make that trickier story more believable.