It is easy to forget what a big star Barbara Stanywyck was in the early 1930s, mostly because her films from this period are not the ones for which she is best remembered.  But ever since Frank Capra’s LADIES OF LEISURE (1930), Stanwyck had been a major Hollywood player.  One of her finest films from this era, and one to be on the lookout for in TCM listings, is EVER IN MY HEART, a striking and unusual love story that begins in 1909 New England.  Stanwyck plays a rich girl who falls in love with, and then marries, Otto Kruger, a German who becomes a science professor at a U.S. college.  Everything is idyllic: love at first sight, the wedding, a baby boy, Kruger’s U.S. citizenship.  But then comes World War I.

Anti-German sentiment whips through the U.S. and Kruger loses his job.  The situation goes from bad to worse, including a family tragedy, and Stanwyck returns to her family while Kruger heads back to Germany.  They divorce.  The melodrama truly kicks in when Stanwyck, now a canteen girl in France, suddenly meets up with Kruger, a German spy.  They are still deeply in love but on opposite sides.  In only 68 minutes, director Archie Mayo weaves a delicate love story with a fast but unhurried pace.  The climax is positively operatic.

EVER IN MY HEART is a poignant look at love versus country, but it even more strongly shows the devastating impact of bigotry on a happy home.  It is about love in an unkind world.  Stanwyck is a bit miscast at the start, not exactly anyone’s idea of a girl with breeding and position.  (It is more of a Margaret Sullavan role.)  But she improves as the story proceeds and is ultimately rather touching, making this one of her loveliest early performances.  Kruger, hardly a leading man, lacks the romantic appeal required, but he responds well to Stanwyck.  Kruger is best remembered as a character man in later films such as COVER GIRL (1944) and MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1954). 

This unknown gem is a little sleeper that deserves to be seen.  It is a polished drama, but it’s also offbeat in its content and in its pre-WWI time period.