My Reputation (1946)

The lonely young widow of an executive (Barbara Stanwyck) finds love with a confirmed bachelor and career army officer (George Brent), only to have her happiness threatened by gossipy old bittie’s (complete with furs and feathers). Well realized melodrama gives you a strong sense of the characters as real people, complete with quarks, complex histories and interrelationships. Stanwyck in full sympathetic mode in what she herself listed as one of her favorite roles, also Brent has some great dialog as the playboy major. Based on the novel “Instruct my Sorrows”by Clare Jaynes. A little find of a movie.