Orson Welles falls in to a kind of archaic theatrical acting style in this wonderful, tear-jerker of a film. As "Erik Kessler," a man who returns under an assumed identity to the wife who has remarried because she though he was dead, he's heavily made-up and talks with a corny and contrived sounding German accent. Of course, that's the point, he doesn't want his wife to recognize him, but one can't help thinking that his wife Elizabeth (Claudette Colbert) is better off with the smooth and sophisticated Lawrence Hamilton (George Brent). What if they switched roles? What if Brent played Kessler and Welles played Hamilton? Now that would put Elizabeth in a really tough position. As it is, Kessler's so unattractive (in woman's film terms) that the female audience knows there's no way she's going to leave Hamilton. As it is, Elizabeth gets the best of all possible worlds. Her first (problematic) husband disappears during the war; she gets a rich and handsome second husband who's only shortcoming seems to be that he's not truly attentive to her sons from her first marriage. Fortunately for her, husband number one comes back just in the nick of time to save their son from a foolish decision. And then he just as conveniently dies, an unopened letter beside him that Elizabeth and Lawrence somehow fail to see. And they get an adorable new little adopted daughter in the process. This little girl will take away the pain that we've learned Elizabeth is going to feel as her boys go off into the world. So it's a perfect ending for Elizabeth--her unattractive, preachy first husband is now permanently out of the way and she can look forward to a more satisfying marriage with the handsome and agreeable Lawrence.