Back Street

Many of the past reviewers of BACK STREET make good points in their comments on the film, stressing its clichés, its contrivances, its lack of real sincerity and emotion. Although I can see these points here and there, I have been hooked to this film ever since I saw it as a teenager, in the early sixties. Does this attraction have to do with the story itself? For me it does, no matter how rehashed it may be. Does it have to do with the characters? Yes, no matter how trite and unoriginal they may be. Does it have to do with the actors? CERTAINLY, especially Susan Hayward, an actress I admire profoundly, who is capable of keeping my attention as few others can, and who always dazzles with with her technique and capacity to be true, no matter how trashy the material originally is. Of course, BACK STREET owes a lot to its production values, the cinematography, the sets and gowns, but the motive of my attraction lies somewhere else, and it must be deep in myself, an area that was already sensitive to the film's values when I first saw it as a boy of 13.

Try to understand that 1961 was the dawn of the sexual revolution predicated on the birth control pill; therefore everything in this movie reflects the pre-1961 era when people were often locked into marriages -- good or bad.

This glamorized version opens the story up from simple people in the 1932 and 1941 versions and makes them self-assured, very good-looking, and easy-street rich. This allows the cameras to give us beautiful vistas of Rome, Paris and London --- as they were before the Great Tourist Invasion which began in 1965 when Pan American World Airways broke with the IATA cartel and slashed fares to Europe, allowing folks like us to join the rich and go there. Now I can tell you that Susan Hayward's Paris hotel was definitely the RITZ -- the Rue Cambon entrance -- the back street entrance near the Ritz Bar where Hemingway evicted a rich woman's pet lion by throwing said lion out on the sidewalk.

Under David Miller's able direction, the narrative is kept solid; even though it's hard to find sympathy for the romantic problems of two persons who otherwise have it all.

Not available on DVD, you can find a VHS on eBay; but it won't be cheap.

Watching this film is like having only cookies and ice cream for dinner. One feels guilt-ridden and knows he shouldn't have done it, but it was so good he's almost ready to do it again...and probably will! Producer Ross Hunter was at the helm so there aren't going to be any grey settings, uncombed hair or even a dirt smudge throughout. The film is a masterwork of overproduction and color coordination...the type of film that credits the furs and the oil paintings (!) in the titles. Hayward plays a single career woman in the mid-1940's who dreams of being a successful clothing designer. These early scenes have all the period detail of the 1940's as say...1958. On one eventful meeting with a potential backer, she collides with and instantaneously falls in love with Gavin, a marine just home from WWII. Who can blame her? He's a hunky dream come true and, for a certain amount of the film, he even has facial expression. His mating ritual includes bullying Hayward across a park lawn until she falls face first into a flower patch. From then on, she's hooked. Unfortunately, they are separated by a misunderstanding or two. Cut to years later (where Hayward, 11 years older than Gavin, looks younger and he now has grey in his hair!) which sees Hayward as a designer of dresses with "line" and style. Amusing support is provided by acerbic Gardiner as her mentor and Schafer (Mrs. Howell of "Gilligan's Island") as a gossipy client. The film globe trots to Paris, London, Rome (though, for some reason, a horrific Hayward body double does all the real travelling.) In one of the films many, MANY clichés and contrivances (Hayward even states at one point that, "All the clichés are true."), the former lovebirds are reunited over the fallen-down body of Gavin's wife Miles. Here, the film takes a powerful turn into the camp stratosphere as shrewy, boozy, slutty Miles (in a stunningly vivid performance) makes the pair's lives miserable. Miles is so intensely evil and vengeful that she becomes a sort of hilarious supervillain when compared with the rather saintly, drab lovers. Her histrionics are like manna from Heaven, no more so than when she makes a triumphant and highly memorable appearance at one of Hayward's fashion shows. Gavin also has two kids. One (Marihugh) is a pretty silent Shirley Temple wannabee. The other (Eyer) is a snotty, annoying child who was scarcely ever heard from again, he so irritated filmgoers. The "Back Street" of the title is SUPPOSED to refer to a secretive, undesirable place for the mistress to be kept away on. In Hunter's version, it's a completely charming cottage in the country! Gavin provides Hayward with the cottage's first piece of decor, but note how she moves it from it's original spot so that we can have a special fade out at the end. The comic book-level melodramatics of the film are emphasized right away by titles that show Lichtenstein-esque pictures of the star trio accompanied by a typically heart-tugging Frank Skinner score. In a spiteful move against the audience, Gavin is shown in clingy swim trunks, but only briefly, from the waist up and in a dimly lit scene! Hayward shows a lot of energy and conviction in her role. Her best scenes involve several pivotal telephone calls. Another note: Grey (a charming actress who plays Hayward's sister) is the same age in real life, yet looks like she could play Hayward's mother! Did she live hard or was she denied the star lighting that Hayward got?? Hunter considered her his good luck charm and cast her in nearly everything until "Lost Horizon". Big mistake to leave her out! That was a notorious flop.

Even in 1961, this had to be taken as a parody of the plush, woman's picture genre. The story had already been filmed in 1932 and 1941, and was creaky by any standard. All the deluxe Ross Hunter trappings (gowns by Jean Louis, jewels by Alexandre) are even more inflated here, with Hayward's gowns designed to match the drapes in the background. The overblown extravagance of the whole production makes Hunter's epics with Lana Turner look like second-string, double feature fare. Oscar-winner Hayward began her descent into strictly camp territory with this warhorse of a soaper; 1963's "Stolen Hours" (a remake of the Bette Davis classic, "Dark Victory") and 1964's "Where Love Has Gone" (co-starring Davis!) continued the trend, until it culminated in Hayward's (indeed, the world's) pinnacle of trash, "Valley of the Dolls" (1967). But back to "Back Street." The well-worn story concerns Hayward, an impossibly chic fashion designer, who is in love with the impossibly handsome (and improbably wooden) John Gavin, a married department store heir. Gavin's wife happens to be rip-roaring alcoholic Vera Miles, who is prone to falling down drunk at parties and threatening suicide. Hayward is nobly self-sacrificing, content to be the "back street" woman for the sake of Gavin's children (who are played by utterly resistible tots). That is, until Miles becomes one of Hayward's couture clients! This is the kind of loopy film where Hayward goes from being a scrappy little dressmaker to world famous couturier in, oh, ten minutes; where elaborate scenes are set up solely to showcase Jean Louis' scrumptious creations (they have no plot bearing whatsoever); and where John Gavin is somehow allowed to play his Really! Big! Scene! as if he's had a full frontal lobotomy (of course, he's so damned gorgeous, you really don't care). Oddly enough, Miles walks off with the film--her teeth are so firmly set into the scenery, you couldn't remove her if you tried, unless you wanted to pull back a bloody stump. (Lana Turner would never have let a supporting player upstage her show!) Hayward clearly took note to never let that happen again, and would give nothing but nostril-flaring, eye-bugging performances for the balance of her career. Look also for Natalie "Lovey Howell" Moorehead in a small but hilarious role as one of Hayward's gossipy clients. As swoony as all this is, "Back Street" is perfect lowbrow entertainment with highbrow trappings, and a sad reminder that, once upon a time, Hollywood DID make stuff like this--when even "bad" movies at least had a healthy shot of glamour to make them enjoyable.

I have watched this film probably more than a dozen times and finally purchased the DVD even though it was only available in full TV-Sized screen format. It may be low brow and poor in most respects for a movie critic's standards, but I love it. I did not think either Hayward or Gavin did a bad or wooden job with their performances. Maybe I am just a patsy for tear-jerker style movies, but I have always enjoyed this movie, even today when it appears so dated and somewhat impoverished by today's standards of movie making. Perhaps we have become too jaded and so-called sophisticated to just sit back and appreciate a story that is reasonably well told and beautifully filmed.