A miscast Gary Cooper is the well-to-do lawyer and failed politician caught in an unhappy marriage who embarks on an affair with a younger woman, (Suzy Parker), in this rather average screen version of John O'Hara's novel, "Ten North Frederick". It's told in flashback on the day of Cooper's character's funeral, (Cooper himself was to be dead from cancer only two years later), as he's remembered by his daughter, (Diane Varsai). Geraldine Fitzgerald is the ambitious shrew of a wife who basically drives Cooper to drink and into Parker's arms.
The book was one of those typically scandalous O'Hara bestsellers and this was a fairly prestige production but Philip Dunne, who also wrote the screenplay, was a dull director and Cooper was already looking pretty frail while Varsai hadn't moved on from her Allison McKenzie character in "Peyton Place". Only Fitzgerald shows any real mettle though in a small, but showy, role as the trumpet player who gets Varsai pregnant, Stuart Whitman shows real promise. Watchable, then, but equally uninspired.
The book was one of those typically scandalous O'Hara bestsellers and this was a fairly prestige production but Philip Dunne, who also wrote the screenplay, was a dull director and Cooper was already looking pretty frail while Varsai hadn't moved on from her Allison McKenzie character in "Peyton Place". Only Fitzgerald shows any real mettle though in a small, but showy, role as the trumpet player who gets Varsai pregnant, Stuart Whitman shows real promise. Watchable, then, but equally uninspired.