Vanessa, Her Love Story (1935) Reviews

Adapted from the last of Hugh Walpole's "Herries Chronicles," Vanessa: Her Love Story is set in Victorian England. Vanessa (Helen Hayes) doesn't know it, but there's a strain of inherited insanity in the family of her husband Ellis (Otto Kruger). Disturbed by Ellis' bizarre behavior, poor Vanessa is all but forced to take a lover, handsome military officer Benjie (Robert Montgomery). Though both hero and heroine are punished for their transgressions, the film ends on a relatively happy note; the original novel's final chapters and tragic denouement are blithely ignored by scenarist Lenore J. Coffee. May Robson steals the show as Vanessa's centenarian grandma. Vanessa: Her Love Story represented Helen Hayes' last film work until her 1952 "comeback" in My Son John. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi