| Barbara Stanwyck plays a brilliant concert pianist who suffers from acute exhaustion following an extended tour. Her London doctor advises her to recuperate at an Alpine sanitarium famed for its treatment success, and for its chief physician, David Niven. Niven is handsome, suave and aloof his professional bearing isolating him emotionally from his female patients, in particular, since they all tend to fall in love with him. So does Miss Stanwyck. And Niven is attracted to her, but, of course, is unable to show it. Feeling better after her first month, Miss Stanwyck ventures out to the nearby village, where she meets a dashing race-car driver (Richard Conte). Despite deteriorating health, she embarks on a wild fling with Conte to Monte Carlo. She lives the high-life until Niven arrives to profess his love and beg her to return to the sanitarium, for her own good. She has but a short time of blissful contentment with Niven, but then dies from her illness. The story, from an Erich Maria Remarque novella, poignantly illustrates the dilemma faced by someone with but a short time to live who must choose between languishing in quiet solitude or embracing whatever excitement can be found, no matter what the consequences. |
