A romantic saga between a woman, played by Merle Oberon & the four suitors (Joseph Cotton, Hans Jaray, George Reeves & Alan Marshal) she met during her years. Beginning w/the opening of an orphanage, where we see Oberon, now an old woman, meeting Cotton w/each of her previous beaus meeting her at her apartment where they reminisce about the past & why she didn't marry them. Cotton came into her life when her tough as nails grandmother, played Edna May Oliver, disagrees w/her physician's diagnosis & Cotton (her butler's son) steps in w/a kinder, more gentler demeanor which wins her over & also Oberon. Through various mechanizations of fate, Oberon comes into contact w/an adventurer, Marshal (who enlists to fight in WWI along w/Cotton), Reeves, a footballer, who at first is in Oberon's cross-hairs but drops the ball (sorry!) when his brash, alcoholic nature torpedoes his chances & later when her interests veer towards the philanthropic (working w/blind children), she meets a blind pianist, Jaray, who joins her as a teaching assistant. Through it all, Oberon is seen as someone who can't commit, even though Cotton is more than willing to take the plunge, but as the elderly Oberon explains, it was Marshal who made the cut as their eventual union is one of idyllic bliss (visualized in a sequence where the couple spend time in a seaside cabin, comfortably enjoying their silences as much as other couples fill their void w/inane chatter) but when Marshal leaves (the remnants of a past union resurface which he has to deal with), Oberon patiently waits out the years to find out what happened. Beautifully realized & mounted by the Korda brothers production team (their 1939 version of The Four Feathers should be required viewing) their sweeping compositions & tableaus which would make a cynic sob are enhanced by Oberon's stately beauty & resolve as she's in full control of the world she lives in (for good or no) & doesn't care to make brash decisions, especially those when it comes to matters of the heart.
