Just perfect...

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Dr. Richard Talbot (Kent Smith) is a middle aged man living in San Francisco with two good kids, a dutiful wife, and a good medical practice, respected in the community. And he has one of the dullest most routine lives in the history of the world and doesn't even realize it until one night on his way home from his office he sees a girl (Ann Sheridan as Nora Prentiss) hit by a car and stops to render aid. She has only minor injuries, and he treats her in his office while she flirts shamelessly. He tries to remain aloof, but does kiss her goodnight at her invitation. Something awakens in Richard.And then the two begin seeing each other. Innocently at first - he shows up at her nightclub to watch her sing on the excuse of eating dinner. And it builds from there. Suddenly the doctor realizes just how dull and routine his life is. He doesn't want to slip into the trap of an extramarital affair, and he tries to get his wife to agree to do "fun" things with him, but she just poo poos him and says they are too old for that sort of thing.Well, the initial bloom of the affair turns to unhappiness for both Nora and Richard as Nora wants more - and so does Richard for that matter - but he just can't commit the overt act of breaking up his family. He can't make real and open what has been the truth for months. So Nora decides to make a clean break. She is moving to New York to sing in a club for an old friend (Robert Alda as Phil Denardo).Richard won't lose Nora, but he can't bring himself to ask for a divorce either. As the clock is ticking on Nora's train out of town, in walks a patient with a fatal heart condition complaining of horrible chest pains. Richard tries to save him, but the patient dies in his office. Richard and the patient were alone. The patient has already said he lives at the YMCA and has no friends or family. And the dead man is the same weight, age, and height as the doctor.So a cowardly solution comes to Richard's mind. He puts the dead man's body in his own car, dowses it with gasoline, sets it ablaze, and pushes it from the road off a cliff to the rocks below. The body is burned beyond recognition with all of Richard's identifying belongings on him. And then he catches up with Nora and lies to her about how he has asked for a divorce and is leaving town with her.He reads the San Francisco papers in New York and reads of his funeral. But he also reads of an investigation caused by his partner in the practice noticing some funny things that might mean Richard was being blackmailed and was perhaps murdered. So Richard's plans - of which Nora knows nothing - are possibly foiled. I'll let you see how this all works out, but I'll just say the irony is astounding, and ask you - at the end of the film, what would you do if you were Nora?Kent Smith never really caught on in motion pictures, but here he is great as a man who starts out as dead on the inside but respected, then alive but torn, and then trapped in a jail of his own making as his sanity slowly unwinds. Nora is a tragic figure, even though she started the flirtation, probably just making fun of a guy she at first found unbelievably stiff given the world of nightclubs in which she lived. Robert Alda is as patient as a saint as the guy who loves Nora, knows all about the home she broke up but not about how Richard actually broke it, and doesn't judge her.If you want to watch a noir in which everybody's life becomes a train wreck but you really can't find one evil character, just one cowardly one, this is your film. It's also one of the first post war films to incorporate the theme of being all alone in a big city despite the sea of people.

I saw this as part of the Noir Festival held annually by the American Cinematheque. Somebody when it was over quipped "Now I know why I never heard of it before--it sure won't make me forget Mildred Pierce". The downfall of Dr. Talbot drags on and on in excessive detail until the film almost seems a parody. Nora Prentiss is presented as a victim of circumstance, even though she is the one who drives Talbot to leave his family, abandon his career and eventually basically fall to pieces. So you don't even have the guilty pleasure of her being a fallen woman or a scheming temptress. Great location shooting, excellent art direction and some adequate acting but not very memorable.

The forgotten Warner Brothers melodrama "Nora Prentiss" was one of the biggest hits of Ann Sheridan's career. Finely directed by Vincent Sherman who guided Joan Crawford and Bette Davis in several hit films, this is a sad, haunting yet somehow realistic story about a married doctor (a great performance by Kent Smith) who fatefully bumps into a nightclub singer (Sheridan) and soon falls madly in love with her. His illicit love of Sheridan leads to his downfall. Some may find the plot a bit contrived but an excellent script and the superb heartfelt performances of Sheridan and Smith make it work beautifully. THe ending is quite a knockout.

Ann Sheridan is a nightclub singer who gets involved with a straitlaced, married doctor in "Nora Prentiss" - and the consequences are interesting indeed. The doctor is played by Kent Smith, well-remembered by yours truly as the husband of Simone Simon in "Cat People." Though he never reached big movie stardom, Smith enjoyed a 40+ year career in film, on radio, and TV. In this, he's regimented and by the book, partly helped by his equally disciplined wife, played by another favorite of mine, Rosemary DeCamp, a wonderful actress. One night, Prentiss ends up in his office with a mild injury, and from then on, the good doctor can't imagine life without her and what he's been missing. Conflicted about asking his wife for a divorce, one day, an opportunity drops into his office, and nothing is the same again.This is an intriguing film, but it takes a little bit too long to get to the point. The ending by '40s standards took me by surprise. Though Sheridan is nothing like Kay Francis, they both are women associated with a certain era - you can't think of Francis without thinking of her in those flowing '30s gowns and outfits - and you can't think of Sheridan without tailored suits and shoulder pads. They went along well with her earthy quality and low speaking voice. The overall effect was of someone who had been around the block but still had her dignity and self-respect. Photographed by James Wong Howe in this film, she looks marvelous. Though IMDb doesn't state if she did her own singing in "Nora Prentiss," if she didn't, the voice matched her speaking voice perfectly and sounded great.Kent Smith is very good as the pent-up, frustrated doctor. One criticism would be that most of the time, doctors look at bodies clinically and aren't usually embarrassed by the site of a woman's knee, as Smith is in one of the opening scenes. However, he's very effective, as are Robert Alda and the always reliable Bruce Bennett in smaller roles.This film apparently did a lot for Sheridan's career, which is understandable. Very good movie.