There's Always Tomorrow (1956)

Saw There's Always Tomorrow, a domestic drama about a man who works at a toy factory.  The film opens on his plans for a romantic birthday dinner with his wife falling through as all of his kids take priority over his life.  He happens to meet an old acquaintance who is played by Barbara Stanwyck so, y'know, this is not just any random lady.  They dine and laugh and the woman showers the man with the attention his family denies him.

This is an interesting film because it was made in the 50s.  Societal expectations of the time cannot be flouted but also patriarchal figures cannot be mocked, so how are we going to deal with this burgeoning scandal?  I won't give the ending away, but it's handled decently.  There's a great showdown in the finale which, although it may not be super believable, is a great source of shouting and women crying and so forth (all of which feeds me.)

The characters all come off more-or-less okay.  The wife of the main character is necessarily very dismissive of any attempt at communication.  I get that this was necessary for the film's plot, but damn that lady is dumb.  When her husband talks about losing a sense of adventure together the wife primly says "Well, a life of adventure sounds very exhausting." and then she reminds him  to come inside and close the balcony door, dear.  Ugh, this lady.

Anyway, the film is fun but somewhat mild.  It has some nice Hitchcockian scenes, where the man and his old coworker laugh and talk, always being overheard at just the wrong moment.  There's some tension there but not a lot.  Similarly, a lot of the film is pretty twee, so we never get into really dark territory.  Similarly, since the film was made in the 50s, there's little chance of getting anything really transgressive (yo but what if they formed a throuple?)  This film is sort of the best of a series of compromises, a middling film that's pleasant but is sort of stopped from being really surprising or exciting.  Ah well.