Plot Summary - Soap Opera about a spoiled and reckless multi-millionaire/playboy named Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson), a handsome daredevil who likes to break speed records in his boat until one day he wrecks the boat and is rescued using a local doctor's resuscitator machine. By a bad stroke of luck the doctor, Wayne Phillips, has an attack at the same time and dies without use of his machine. Helen (Jane Wyman), his wife of only six-months is sadly left a widow - the doctor, a beloved figure for his secret generosity to many, is well missed. Bob Merrick meets Helen by chance and immediately starts putting the moves on her - unaware of who she is, or the story of his inadvertent part in the death of Phillips. When Merrick hears the story he becomes haunted with Dr. Phillips and with Helen, and he becomes inspired to try a new way of life to help square things with her. POSSIBLE SPOILER: unfortunately, things just keep getting worse - in his rather high pressure pursuit to help her in spite of her strong dislike for him, she is hit by a car and blinded. Then our guy decide to go all out to help her, secretly funding her bank account disguised as insurance settlement, and meeting up with her in the little beach cove where she likes to sit in her sunglasses - um, he pretends he is someone else and she believes him (or does she) - romance to follow.
Review - This is an entertaining love story, shot in Technicolor with pretty on-location scenery, and backed by a tearjerker orchestral score and lots of high melodrama! This wasn't the sort of film to bring tears to my eyes - but I did enjoy it, I do kind of like to indulge sometimes in far-fetched soap opera. Agnes Moorehead appears as a family friend/nurse at the hospital; the young actress who plays the little girl who is Helen's tomboy beach pal, Judy, steals some scenes. Not a whole lot of chemistry between Hudson and Wyman, I might add, which keeps this from being as romantic as I would want it to be. And one thing I wonder about - it occurred to me to be a bit off that Wyman's character doesn't immediately recognize Merrick's voice when she first meets him on the beach after she has become blind - then again, it may be implied that she does, but keeps quiet about it - hmmm. Rating - 8/10 stars
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