A clever usage of history is the glue that holds this costume gangster movie together. Robert Taylor is a federal agent utilized by President McKinley in 1901 to infiltrate a gang of bank robbers. This leads to the capture and sentencing to hanging, no witnesses in his favor as the president is assassinated. Barbara Stanwyck plays the Lillian Russell like singer (ironically named Lily) whom Taylor falls for and is the only person who can possibly save him.This enjoyable period drama with a few nice musical sequences is a delightful pairing of the real-life couple who married several years later. Stanwyck's husky voice isn't Merman or Garland, but is pleasant and perfect for the period. She looks wonderful in the period costumes and her acting excellent, particularly when she goes to see President Theodore Roosevelt for help. She hit her stride this year with her first Oscar Nomination for "Stella Dallas" and Taylor rose above romantic leads where he was overshadowed by the leading ladies he was being cast opposite at MGM.Victor McLaglen and Brian Donlevy also stand out as members of the gang, McLaglen giving a memorable breakdown scene where he fights against his imminent hanging while in prison. There's a hint of the Alice Faye musicals of the time that 20th Century Fox was making, especially the soon to be released "In Old Chicago".

This is an unusual film because although it was made by Twentieth-Century Fox because it's one of the few pairings of Barbara Stanwyck and her future husband, Robert Taylor. Barbara Stanwyck had been making films for many different studios (RKO, Paramount and Selznick) at about the time she made THIS IS MY AFFAIR, but Taylor was an MGM contract player so he only appeared in this film because he was loaned to Fox--something studios occasionally did during this era.The film is interesting because many real-life people have roles in the film, though the piece is otherwise pure fiction. You'll see actors playing William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt and Admiral Dewey. I can't recall any film with McKinley or Dewey in it as a character, though I do remember Roosevelt from THE WIND AND THE LION and a couple other films. Three cheers for seeing a "lesser President" in a film as a major character! The film begins with McKinley taking a young lieutenant (Robert Taylor) aside and asking him to be a special agent for him--and telling no one--not even the Secret Service. That's because the President fears that someone within the agency is tipping off a gang that has been making a long string of robberies--all based on inside information. So it's up to Taylor (who is NOT known for his manly roles--especially at this stage of his career) to pose as a thug and find the gang responsible AND the inside man.However, there are two serious complications. First, while he is able to find the gang members, one of the gang member's step-sister is Stanwyck. Taylor finds that he's fallen in love with her but he must also do his duty and turn them in to the authorities. Second, because McKinley is the only other person who knows the truth, SERIOUS problems develop when McKinley is assassinated and Taylor is on death row for the crimes!!! The film did a nice job of creating a story and placing it within a historical context. While today most people don't remember McKinley nor remember that he was assassinated, the film is set in this interesting time period. The acting is pretty decent, as the stars are supported by Victor McLaglen and Brian Donlevy, though I must admit that Donlevy's role was pretty tame and ordinary compared to many of his other film roles. Overall, it's very interesting, well written and not too sappy in the romance department. A good outing for all.

I am a huge Robert Taylor fan and I have been trying to find all of his films. This is one I did not have, but I watched it recently on Fox Movie Channel, and was very disappointed. I know he was a contract player with little control over his scripts, but the acting was as bad as the script. Victor McLaglen was even bad, and Brian DonLevy was almost unrecognizable. Considering the relations off screen between Taylor and Stanwyck, it was surprising how little chemistry there was on screen between the two of them. But the premise of the film was so ridiculous: that the President of the U.S. would order a Navy Lt to leave the service secretly to hunt down bank robbers, and report only to the President, that it made it hard to appreciate anything else about the film. The death row scenes were entirely unmoving. The only thing worse than Taylor's acting was Stanwyck's singing. She got better later in Ball of Fire-thank heavens.

Did anyone watching this movie wonder if President McKinley got assassinated, because of his secret attempt to unmask one of his confidantes as the kingpin of a crime syndicate? It's a question that was left unexplored here, because, I take it, Americans of the thirties never saw the event as anything but the act of a lone fanatic instead of as a conspiracy. After all, audiences were still recovering from the aftermath of a Depression, and the movies of the time were more concerned with stamping out the Little Caesars and Duke Santees of the day than uncovering political corruption. Allan Rivkin ("The Farmer's Daughter") wrote an interesting story about a naval officer (Robert Taylor) who, in secret correspondence with McKinley, uncovers the linchpin behind a wave of bank robberies in the upper Midwest centered in, of all places, St. Paul, Minnesota. The screenplay gets sanctimonious in the hands of Lamar Trotti, and the script did not inspire William Seiter to more imaginative heights. Brian Donlevy plays the crime boss with his usual menace, while Barbara Stanwyck (of all people) as his half-sister is made to sing (She's barely on-key, like Marlene Dietrich in "The Blue Angel.") and wear big, floppy hats--even in her stage act. The only one I've ever seen on screen who could pull off wearing headgear like these is Mae West, and she was at least in on the joke. Stanwyck, on the other hand, is forced to be unswervingly sincere throughout. Her character Lil and the officer idle on Lake Como and get serious about each other, much to the dismay of Victor MacLaglen who's Donlevy's sidekick, prone to playing practical jokes, and thinks he has it in with her. The acting is uniformly bad; I guess Stanwyck and Taylor were too much in love at the time to care. The story deserved better than this. A secret only you and the President share you would think should take precedence over run-of-the mill movie romance. Unless it involves a cigar and a stained dress...