ETERNALLY YOURS (1939) ** Carries on at breakneck speed, but if they were aiming at the effect of a whirlwind they ended up more just failing to develop anything. And not just that they've driving too fast, but that where they're going is painfully obvious. On the other hand, the lack of time-consuming scenes or plot means that things never get too bad, and the film is carried by the considerable and largely complementary charms of David Niven and Loretta Young. I'm not saying performances for the ages, but the film would have been a laughable disaster in most other hands. Why do people do such stupid things, and have such lousy priorities? Why do they need the threat of tragedy to give them some sense of reality? These questions, and probably some other like them, are encountered without being engaged, so if it's enough to just have your attention distracted to where it might belong, I guess that could be a pretty big deal if you can pick it up and make it real and your own, and hadn't already thought of doing so.
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