BACK STREET: Blu-ray (Universal-International, 1961) Kino Lorber

The fictional pedigree of author, Fannie Hurst was arguably tailor-made for the likes of movie producer, Ross Hunter. Hurst, born into her own particular brand of liberalism in 1885, and, whose soapy melodramas were an ingenious concoction of social issues of the day and women’s rights, wed to the sentimentality and time-honored traditions of the romance novel, was also an early proponent of feminism and racial equality. One of the highest paid authors of her generation, with virtually all her books going on to become best sellers in the early 1920’s and 30’s, Hurst’s literature was also highly sought by film producers who wasted no time capitalizing on their popular zeitgeist in the moment. In retrospect, however, much of Hurst’s authorship has not dated well – her baroque writing style possessing a slightly creaky quality even back in the day, critics of her work utterly deplored, but remained precisely the quality for which her stories were also wildly appealing to her mostly female fan base.  It is also interesting to note that while much of Hurst’s authorship is currently out of print, the films made from it are still regarded as classics today, especially, Imitation of Life (1934 and its 1959 remake), Four Daughters (1938), Humoresque (1946), and Young at Heart (1954). Backstreet, first published in 1931, and a minor publishing phenomenon in its time, made its way to the screen in 1932, costarring Irene Dunne and John Boles – then, perceived as a rising male lead. The picture was a success, sparking another film version in 1941, and then, several ‘unofficial’ remakes throughout the next two decades – variations on Hurst’s theme of a young woman torn in her love for a married man.

Very little of Hurst’s novel, except this thumbnail sketch of lovers kept apart by their own moral sense of duty, remains in Ross Hunter’s glossy reboot. The tale, now updated from 1900 Cincinnati to 1940’s post-war Lincoln, Nebraska, now co-stars Susan Hayward and John Gavin as the ill-fated lovers. In Hurst’s novel, the struggling ingenue, Ray Schmidt is ‘kept’ by her married lover, Walter Saxel. He quietly installs her in various apartments as he and his wife move from place to place, eventually causing a rift between him and his adult children, who finally get a clue as to what is going on. In Hunter’s remake, ‘Rae’ becomes a successful fashion designer (likely a development the proto-feminist, Hurst would have championed) and doesn’t need a lover’s monies to sustain her. The male lead played by Gavin, and now rechristened as department store magnet, Paul Saxon, is more amiable, yet torn in his affections for Rae. Another wrinkle: in the novel and first two movie versions of Back Street, Walter (nee, Paul) has not yet made his millions, and thus, fearful of a life of poverty, weds Corrine, a woman whose social status can afford him a leg up in his career, thus inferring him to be an opportunist with a woman on the side. In in the 61’ version, Hunter and screenwriters, William Ludwig and Eleanore Griffin take every opportunity to illustrate Paul’s love and affections for Rae as genuine. He is, thus, already wed to the affluent trophy wife, Liz (played with bitter venom by Vera Miles), and, the father of two adorable children, Paul Jr. (Robert Eyer) and Caroline (Tammy Marihugh). Owing to her vile determination to keep Paul at all costs, Liz makes it virtually impossible for Paul to get a divorce.  

The 61’ version of Back Street greatly benefits from Ross Hunter’s uber-sheen and ultra-glossy treatment. Having traded Depression-era drab for post-war mega-chic-Manhattan, then later, globe-trotting Paris and Rome (aside, all of it shot in California using stock footage, rear projection and studio-recreated glam-bam, a la long-time Universal art director, Alexander Golitzen, magnificently photographed by another Hollywood stalwart, Stanley Cortez), Back Street arrives in Eastman color and widescreen as a pure and pulpy soap opera. Such were always Hunter’s ambitions. The Cleveland-native Hunter, born ‘Martin Fuss’ of Jewish/German lineage, and, who began professionally as an English/drama teacher, prior to his service in WWII, emerged from the war with a Hollywood contract at Columbia Pictures, thanks to several of his students sending in his photo to casting agents. Alas, an actor’s life was not to be and after several B-grade musicals, Hunter was stricken with penicillin poisoning, a devastating blow to his career. He returned to teaching drama and speech therapy, but increasingly, and sincerely, missed the limelight. Electing to make a change yet again, this time Hunter focused on the business of making movies, amassing a small repertory company of favorites, to include actress, Virginia Grey and director, David Miller (both, to work on Back Street). Hunter’s deft business sense landed him a Universal contract in 1951 as associate producer, a springboard from whence he almost immediately began to churn out the hits, economically produced to impress his bosses.

In hindsight, Back Street, and, the rest of Hunter’s career as a full-fledged producer of frothy entertainments, owes a lot to director, Douglas Sirk, on whose 1953 potboiler, All I Desire both men discovered their kindred spirits and yen for syrup and sass. Their successful collaborations continued the following year with 1954’s updated version of 1935’s Magnificent Obsession, and then, the costume swashbuckler, Captain Lightfoot, and another remake of a creaky old melodrama, There’s Always Tomorrow, and, All That Heaven Allows (all of them in 1955). Apart, Hunter dabbled in musical comedy, creating the beloved classic, Tammy and the Bachelor (1957). A brief fallow period was followed by two mega-hits in 1959: Pillow Talk and the remake of Imitation of Life – the one/two knockout punch from these box office titans, earning Hunter his status as the most successful producer on the Universal backlot. Like virtually all of the pictures to follow, including Back Street, Hunter’s reputation with the critics was on less solid ground. Indeed, most abhorred his plushily padded pulp. Hunter was as dismissive of his detractors, commenting decades later, “I gave the public what they wanted: a chance to dream, to live vicariously, to see beautiful women, jewels, gorgeous clothes, melodrama.”  Curiously, Back Street, despite being directed with undeniable panache by David Miller, curiously lacks Douglas Sirk’s light touch and passion for gushy melodrama.

Co-stars, Susan Hayward and John Gavin did not get on, mostly owing to Hayward’s complete lack of respect for Gavin’s acting talents, regarding him as the poor-man’s Rock Hudson. Ironically, this moniker fit in the early days when the perpetually grinning Gavin was being groomed by the studio, purely for his raven-haired and athletically built bo-hunk status. But like all enduring he-men of his vintage, there was more to Gavin than rank musculature and a manly square jaw. The L.A.-born Gavin, who served during the Korean war for 4 years, was rumored to have come from privilege; a distinction, Gavin denied. Indeed, upon returning home, Gavin was granted a screen test by producer/pal, Bryan Foy at Universal-International. Eager to promote their young buck, Uni cast Gavin – billed as John Gilmore – in Raw Edge (1956), then rechristened him John Gavin, before lining up a string of movies.  After a few false starts, things began to crystalize for Gavin with Sirk’s A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958), a dud that, nevertheless, got Gavin noticed. Ross Hunter selected Gavin for Imitation of Life the following year, a sensation for which Gavin was ear-marked as the most promising newcomer of the year, a moniker affirmed when Hitchcock picked him to play the hero in his penultimate masterpiece, Psycho (1960). That same year, Gavin was given a prominent supporting role in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, and then supporting parts in Hunter’s Midnight Lace, and, A Breath of Scandal. Despite his rising popularity, Gavin was unimpressed with the studio’s handling of his career. After tepid box office on Back Street, Gavin unofficially left Universal, believing he might make a bigger splash in pictures made abroad. Two years later, he was back on the backlot, but with a new contract offering him greater freedom to pick and choose his projects.

As for Susan Hayward, at age 44, she was decidedly a little ‘long in the tooth’ to play the impressionable ingenue who struggles to make sense of her grand amour with a married man. Hayward, born Edythe Marrenner in Brooklyn, was bitten by the acting bug while still in high school. Clawing her way up a modeling career, and gutsily trying out for the part of Scarlet O’Hara in 1937, Hayward eventually landed a contract at Warner Bros., thanks to the finagling of her agent, Max Arnow. Her debut in Hollywood Hotel that same year was inauspicious, and followed by other forgettable bits. A move to Paramount led to Hayward being cast in 1939’s Beau Geste, a small part in a big picture that made the critics take notice. By 1942, she was given plush supporting parts in pictures like Cecil B. DeMille’s Reap the Wild Wind. Yet, somehow, super-stardom eluded her. Two years later, Hayward had tired of Paramount’s work-a-day approach to her career and left the studio. It would not be until 1947 she would experience her first flourish of success under indie-producer, Walter Wanger, starring in Smash Up – critically, ill-received, but otherwise a big hit.  Working steady, and moving as a free agent  at 2oth Century-Fox and for Samuel Goldwyn, Hayward had 3 major hits in a row: 1951’s David and Bathsheba, With a Song in My Heart – the Jane Froman story, and, The Snows of Kilimanjaro (both in 1952). Fox kept Hayward very busy throughout the 1950’s. But smack in the middle of this flourish, she was borrowed by MGM for her most sizable hit yet, I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955).  Her Oscar-win for I Want to Live (1958) seemed to cap off her most noteworthy period in pictures. Alas, 2 years earlier, Hayward starred in The Conqueror, shot in the desert sands near a U.S. nuclear testing facility in St. George, Utah. Unaware of the radioactive poisoning in the air and soil, cast and crew trucked several dump trucks of the same radioactive sand back to Hollywood to recreate sets on the backlot. When Hayward was eventually diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor and cancer in 1972, dying 3 years later from her ailments, ‘unofficial’ speculation began to swirl, The Conqueror had claimed no less than 46 fellow castmates and crew, including John Wayne, Agnes Moorehead, Pedro Armendáriz (who committed suicide after his diagnosis of cancer), and director, Dick Powell. Of the 220 people involved in that movie’s production, 91 eventually developed some form of cancer. Coincidence, indeed!  

Back Street sports a big bold and brassy main title by Frank Skinner. Immediately thereafter, we are introduced to USO good-time gal, Rae Smith, living with her friend, Janey (Virginia Grey) and squired by handsome, Curt Stanton (Charles Drake). Although fond of Curt, Rae is not in love, nor has she ever been, until a chance meeting with dashing solider, Paul Saxon. The two share a dance, then adjacent rooms in a nearby hotel. When one of Rae’s prospective ‘employers’ decides to get fresh with her, Paul gallantly steps in, pretending to be Rae’s fiancée. Shortly thereafter, Paul and Rae become an item. She owns a local dress shop in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is the heir apparent to a department store dynasty. Despite their polar opposite lifestyles, the two begin a whirlwind love affair, only marginally derailed when Paul confesses, he is in a loveless marriage with Liz. Rae is empathetic but determined not to remain ‘the other woman’. Despite this seemingly impossible stalemate, Paul vows to get a divorce so they can be together. Rae promises to meet him at the airport. Fate, however, intervenes. Rae is late. Paul’s plane departs without her and he, believing she has stood him up, tries to forget her.

Time passes. Rae leaves Lincoln for a chance to make it big in the Big Apple. Landing a job as a fashion model, Rae’s ambitions to be a designer are almost immediately shot down by her snooty and effete boss, couturier, Dalian (Reginald Gardiner). Nevertheless, after she models one of her self-made creations, he is quick to recognize her keen eye for simplicity and lines. Despite his daily insults, Dalian proves to be a pussy-cat, gently allowing Rae to showcase her talent as part of his Fall line. Her skills as a designer lead to a fruitful alliance and before long Dalian makes Rae his full partner in the business, even adding her name to his shop. All seems well, until a chance meeting with Paul on the streets of Manhattan. Rae is aloof at first, then firm about her desire never to see him again. Undaunted, Paul tails Rae to her fashionable apartment and reaffirms that his love has never cooled. Nevertheless, the next day, Rae informs Dalian she intends to quit to escape Paul. In reply, Dalian moves his entire operations to Italy, the change of scenery good for everyone. Rae is surprised when Curt resurfaces at their salon in Rome, suggesting he is in town on business. Actually, he has returned to see if Rae will have him for her lover. And while Rae is exceedingly glad to see a familiar face, wining and dining Curt and his friends, her brief happiness is once again derailed when, in attempting to help a drunken woman up from the floor in a fashionable restaurant, Rae suddenly discovers it is Liz, with Paul arriving late in embarrassment to collect his wife.

We momentarily depart from Rae’s consternation to experience a bit of Paul and Liz’s extremely bitter marriage. She is vile and violent towards him, especially when he attempts to sober her up. He is angry and disgusted by his wife’s behavior. But Paul is a devoted father, who cannot help by empathize what a divorce would do to his young son and daughter. Liz elects to send the children away on a tour of the Alps with their governess, Miss Hatfield (Doreen McLean) but then tries to commit suicide by swallowing a whole bottle of sleeping pills.  Liz also tries to wreck Paul’s relationship with his children by informing them of his affair with Rae. As a result, Paul Jr. is resentful of his father for some time thereafter. Rae, unable to resist Paul any longer, throws herself into a passionate affair at the house he secretly buys near Paris for their rendezvous. Determined to destroy not only her husband’s happiness but also Rae’s reputation, Liz arrives at Dalian’s atelier during a fashion show and publicly calls out Rae as Paul’s mistress.

Rae retreats from her public life. Meanwhile, outraged by his wife’s latest stunt, Paul pursues Liz, already inebriated and driving their car to attend a party. Paul’s repeated attempts to take the wheel fail and Liz drives them over a cliff. Liz is instantly killed. As Paul lays dying in hospital, he pleads with his son to telephone Rae to explain the situation. Realizing the depth of his father’s love for Rae, Paul Jr. complies. But after only a few brief whispers into the phone, Paul expires, leaving Rae and Paul Jr. utterly forlorn. Time, again, passes. Winter comes. Rae sits in her Arctic desolation, contemplating the past, with no hint of a future in sight. Then, a knock at the door. Paul Jr. and Caroline arrive at Miss Hatfield’s behest. Paul Jr. explains, if Rae is agreeable, they would like to come and live with her from now on. A tearful Rae embraces the children from the only man she ever loved as her own, determined to make a happy family once again.

Back Street’s last act is so utterly implausible and maudlin, it left most critics with a powerful bitter taste of saccharine they wasted no time in excoriating. With lingering expectations from the first two screen incarnations, audiences of the day were left feeling deflated and wanting for something more. Though it made back its cost, Back Street was not a hit for Ross Hunter. Ah, but time does incredibly strange things to memory and movies; also, our memories of them. When Back Street aired on television in the late 1970’s, the pall of its pulp had mellowed. I recall seeing the picture in 1979 as a late-night filler, commercial interrupted, yet falling almost immediately under its romanticized spell. Imbued with strong, solid performances from its principal cast, and exemplary production values as only Ross Hunter in his prime could compute and procure, Back Street today plays like a quaint and carefully contrived three-hanky tear-jerker, likely Hunter’s singular aim all along. Reflecting on one decade – the forties, made in another – the sixties, and looking at least one decade younger in its mindset than that – the fifties, Back Street was a movie oddly out of step when it arrived on theater screens. Today, it appears as perfectly realized pulp fiction, romantic fluff and gooey ‘feel good’ nonsense, a true testament to Ross Hunter’s glowing/flowing abilities to recreate a place and a time that, arguably, never existed, except at the movies. We love Mr. Hunter for this. If nothing else, his films definitely entertained us. Even for those who reportedly lack a heart - bring Kleenex.

Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray of Back Street is disappointing. For some time now, Kino has been content to distribute Universal’s back catalog on Blu-ray. Yet, with marginal exceptions, Uni’s total short-sightedness, especially when it comes to their own vintage product, is, frankly appalling. Back Street was photographed in Eastman color. And while it remains questionable whether or not original elements on this movie still survive, what is for certain is Back Street on Blu-ray looks nothing like it did in theaters. For starters, the elements here are sourced from a thoroughly anemic print master several generations removed from the OCN.  There’s something wrong when the trailer for this movie – missing scenes, but mastered in HD – delivers a more refined image than the actual movie. Contrast here is boosted well beyond the norm. So, the image is extremely washed out. Flesh looks bleached, and rear projection suffers from distinct fading. Colors that were once rich and fully saturated are now garish and pasty. Just look at the scene when Rae and Paul reunite on the streets of New York. She is wearing a vibrant red coat that intermittently fades to pasty pink, then gaudy orange from shot to shot. Color reproduction throughout is all over the place, making for a thoroughly inconsistent visual presentation. And film grain is often amplified to such egregious levels it looks more digitally harsh than indigenous to its source. The 2.0 DTS audio is lush and lovely, particularly Frank Skinner’s score. We also get a new audio commentary by historian, David Del Valle, moderated by filmmaker, David DeCoteau. I rather enjoyed this, although Del Valle gets some of his facts wrong and spends much of the time offering anecdotal stories that seem to only touch upon the peripheries of the movie at hand. We also get a slew of theatrical trailers for other product Kino is hoping to market to prospective buyers. Bottom line: Back Street was never a great movie. But it is a more than competently made one that makes most of us cry, imbued with lovely performances and some monumentally appealing production values. This Blu-ray is a minor travesty, and that’s a shame as Uni seems unlikely ever to revisit it again with restored elements. Regrets.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

2.5

EXTRAS

1