My Romance with Movies: From the 1950s: Three Secrets

1950 Drama

From Warner Bros

Directed by Robert Wise

Starring

Eleanor Parker

Patricia Neal

Ruth Roman

Frank Lovejoy

Leif Erickson

Larry Keating

Katherine Warren

Edmon Ryan

Ted de Corsia

Three women await the rescue of a five-year old boy, the sole survivor of a plane crash at the top of a massive, remote California mountain. It is reported that the child was born on September 16, 1944 and turned over to an adoption agency. Each woman has kept a secret that she had a son born on that day and given him up to the same agency. Now, one by one, they gather at a lodge below the crash site along with scores of reporters, skilled mountain climbers, volunteers, the Red Cross and interested onlookers.

Robert Wise, directing his 10th film, does so with his usual finesse and a great understanding of the matters at hand. He has submitted a story that is well-constructed, with good pacing that sustains interest to the very end. He has caught the stark experience of hoping and waiting not only from the three women but from the onlookers as well.

Warner Bros had the original story, Rock Bottom, sitting around waiting for the right time and the right actresses. Since two of the roles are for women with tough demeanors, it would have been understandable that perhaps a Davis, Crawford, Lupino or Sheridan might have stepped in although all were a little old to play mothers of a five year old. But the studio didn't have to look too far to come up with Patricia Neal, Ruth Roman and Eleanor Parker since all were WB contract actresses.

While all the commotion at the foot of the mountain ably keeps everyone fully engaged, let's face it, we have to learn more about these three women and turn them into three-dimensional characters and that, of course, is done through flashbacks.

Parker plays Susan Chase, a sweet, upper middle-class homemaker with a lawyer husband, Bill (Erickson) and a strong-minded mother (Warren). She regrets that she has never told Bill that she had a child. She also regrets being unable to bear any more children. Before meeting her husband, she had an affair with a soldier who never knew she was pregnant and who broke her heart when he told her he was returning to his girl back home.

While still in the hospital Susan decides she wants to keep her baby but her mother tells her that she simply cannot do that. What would people say? How would the family be regarded? How would Susan be treated?

Susan's mother visits her daughter on the child's birthday because she senses it will be a rough day for Susan, coupled with the fact that Bill is leaving on a business trip. But Susan assures her mother that all is okay... it's all in the past and she has moved on.

The only married couple... Erickson and Parker

But when the news of the plane crash comes blaring on the radio, Susan shows it's not in the past. When she sees a picture of the kid, she swears he looks just like her. Right after Bill leaves on his trip, Susan, ignoring her mother, rushes out of the house and heads for the mountain.

Once she arrives, she's befriended by Phyllis Horn (Neal) who recognizes her from the day at the adoption agency. Yes, Phyllis also had a son that day but she's at the location due to her being a newspaper reporter. Only at the end of the story does she give off any signals about being interested in reuniting with her child... if, of course, it is her child. Phyllis is not interested in children or marriage because being a reporter, and an acclaimed one at that, has captured her complete attention.

Phyllis has had a longtime relationship with Bob Duffy (Lovejoy) but he has broken it off because she doesn't give him what he wants. He stresses that he wants a woman and he doesn't see much of that in her. He complains that she thinks, acts and speaks like a man. Long after their breakup they meet again. She wants to rekindle their spark but he's cold to her. But Phyllis is nothing if not persistent and she wears him down. He gets her to promise she'll give up her job and be his wife. Surprisingly she promises.

One day as she's slaving over the stove, her old boss (Keating) visits and tells her he has a plum assignment that she simply must take. She says she can't, she just can't and he says you know you want it and she admits she does. He says he'll talk to Bob and she says ok. Neither knows Bob is in the living room listening.

Bob leaves her again and this time good... just as she discovers she's pregnant. She hadn't processed her feelings about the child when she hears Bob has married. It's at that time she decides to give up her child.

Phyllis and Susan are chatting when Ann Lawrence (Roman) walks in the lodge. She's a hard-bitten, smart-mouthed felon who soon informs the other two that she could be the mother of the child.

De Corsia trying to keep Roman at bay

Ann had been a ballerina when a mobster plucks her off the stage and into his life. He treats her to a life of luxury that she has never known and all she has to do is be there when he desires her. She falls madly in love with him, not realizing that he doesn't feel the same. When she realizes she is carrying his child, she goes to see him at his hotel but she is short-circuited by his right-hand man (de Corsia). She doesn't tell him she's pregnant while he ignores her pleas to see the man.

When she manages to see him (busting into his room), he is quite dismissive and cruel. When he tells her that she's never meant anything to him beyond a good time, she picks up a bookend and smashes it against his head. She goes to prison for manslaughter (?), getting out for one day to have her baby.

Ann's a most unhappy and embittered woman but while they all wait, the other two try to bring some cheer into her life.

The audience does learn who the mother of the child is but I couldn't possibly say because it would ruin all the fun. There is also a surprise ending that adds to that fun.

While Parker is top-billed, it is Neal who is essentially the star of the film and it is she who moves the story along. Neal and Parker were good pals and Roman bonded with both of them and all three deliver compelling performances. Parker was miffed that her role was another good girl role and as a result, she didn't particularly care for the movie. Her next film was the prison drama Caged and she got the kind of notices she had longed for. The following year she knocked it out of the park as Kirk Douglas's wife in The Detective Story. Fifteen years after making Three Secrets, she would work for Wise again in The Sound of Music.

From left... Roman, Neal, Parker

Neal wasn't sure she wanted to make Three Secrets but her longtime married boyfriend Gary Cooper thought it would be a good role for her. A year later she would work for Wise again in the popular The Day the Earth Stood Still and a year after that she would work for him again in The Washington Story.

The year before Three Secrets was released, Roman made a splash in two noirs, Champion and The Window. She would go on to make two westerns with Cooper. As fine of an actress that she was, she would never reach the acclaim that Neal and Parker did.

A host of character actors had small and largely uncredited roles such as Arthur Franz, John Dehner, Jay Adler, Nana Bryant, Russ Conway, Eleanor Audley, Ross Elliott, Willard Waterman, Kenneth Tobey and Paul Picerni.

The movie has been compared unfavorably to both A Letter to Three Wives and Ace in the Hole (two more Kirk Douglas films) but I think it holds its own and again, I was pleased with how Wise handled the story and his actresses. The dialogue, particularly from Neal, is most affecting.

Of course by today's standards having a child out of wedlock doesn't raise an eyebrow but the film is still an homage to the social mores of the day.

Here's the trailer: