The Great Man’s Lady (1942)

On the day a statue to the founder of Hoyt City is to be dedicated, reporters converge on the home of Barbara Stanwyck, playing a centenarian who has a mysterious connection to the founder. The film then flashes back to the past when Babs was just a teenager and infatuated with the future founder, played by Joel McCrea. They marry and the film proceeds to tell of their life together and apart, Stanwyck providing the cleverness and fortitude that made him so successful. Trying to show a ‘behind every great man there is a great lady’ tale, this mostly fails because there is little redeeming McCrea’s character except that he sometimes gets out of his way long enough to listen to Barbara. Multiple times in the film, he brings ruin to their lives whether through gambling away their savings or jealousy over another’s interest in his wife and are only saved because Stanwyck is that great.