Last night I watched Back Street with Susan Hayward and John Gavin. I was really in the mood for a screwball comedy, not a melodrama, but Lisa said she was interested in watching the Awful Truth (this week’s NetFlix), so I decided to hold off on it and watch Back Street instead. Susan loved John Gavin despite his drunken, slutty wife and two children. She readily accepted being his mistress if only so they could be together every now and then. In her spare time she became a very famous fashion designer. (Just like Lauren Bacall in Designing Woman!!!) Everything came to a crashing end when John’s son finds out about Susan. John has to explain why he has a lover; the son can’t handle it. Soon his slutty drunken wife finds out about her and sabotages Susan’s fashion show by announcing to the entire audience that Susan is her husband’s lover. As drunken slutty wife is about to drive away, John gets in the car with her to announce he is DEMANDING a divorce! Drunken slutty wife will not have any of this, no way! She slams her foot onto the gas and off they go careening! Weaving through the streets of Paris, John tries to pull the key from the ignition. He can’t do it, drunken slutty wife means business! She yanks the steering wheel from his grasp, just in time to plummet down a cliff! A newspaper hurtles towards the screen documenting her death and his paralysis and imminent death. He lies in a hospital bed, completely bandaged while his son cries. John tries to speak but he can’t. His son gets a pad of paper and John scratches down the words, “CALL SUSAN!!” The little boy calls his father’s mistress. Susan was unaware of the crash. The little boy holds the phone to his father’s face. “Susan…. I… love…. you….” whispers John just as he takes his final breath. “No! No! No!” she screams! Days go by and Susan glumly just sits at the country home John bought her. There is a knock at the door. Who could it be? Oh my goodness, it’s John’s son and daughter! “We have no one left and we thought maybe we can visit you when we are home from boarding school, is that alright?” “Of course children, of course!” Susan embraces the children as the image fades out! FIN!

They don’t make movies like that anymore!