Humoresque
In New York City, a performance by noted violinist Paul Boray (John Garfield) is cancelled. At his apartment, Boray is at rock bottom emotionally. His manager Frederic Bauer (Richard Gaines) is angry with him for misunderstanding what a performing career would be like, and for thinking that music is no longer part of his life. To the more sympathetic Sid Jeffers (Oscar Levant), Boray says he has always wanted to do the right thing, but has always been "on the outside, looking in," and cannot "get back to that happy kid" he once was.
In the past, young Paul (Bobby Blake) is choosing a birthday present in a suburban New York Variety store run by Jeffers (Harlan Briggs). He rejects as childish the suggestions of his father "Papa" Rudy (J. Carrol Naish), a grocery store owner, but settles on a violin, which his father rejects as unsuitable; his price limit is $1.50. Esther, his mother (Ruth Nelson), sympathetic at this stage, buys the $8 violin for the boy.
A transition from his faltering first steps to being a gifted young violinist follows. On 15 October 1930, he overhears his father Rudy's dismissal of his chances, and the frustration of his brother Phil (Tom D'Andrea) in finding a job. He resolves to go out on his own and not be dependent on his family. He finds a job with locally broadcast orchestra in which Sid Jeffers is the pianist.
At a party, Paul meets the hostess Helen Wright (Joan Crawford), a patroness in a loveless marriage with an ineffectual aging husband Victor (Paul Cavanagh), her third. Helen is a self-centered, adulterous woman who uses men as sexual playthings and is initially baffled by the strong-willed and independent Boray. After being rude to him at the party, she sends a golden cigarette case to his home the next day. "Papa" Boray is impressed, but Paul's mother is now suspicious.
Helen seems at first interested in his talent rather than Boray as a person, though Boray is quick to press her on the second issue. He gains a manager, Bauer, from her connections, and is now in love with her. On the beach, near the Wrights' Long Island home, he reaches out to Helen after a swim, but she runs away; later in the evening she falls off a horse and he kisses her, but Helen does not want to be touched and wishes to be left alone by Paul.
After a shot of ocean waves, everything is different. Helen warns him he might be sorry love was ever invented, but admits she cannot fight him any longer, and is in love with him. Waiting at home, Esther (Ruth Nelson), his mother, is not fooled by his denials, and points out a missed date with Gina Romney (Joan Chandler), also a musician and his long-time sweetheart. Esther had earlier overheard Victor's putdown of Paul as a "savage" after a concert.
After a tour across America that takes several months, he has lunch with Gina. Sid arrives with Helen, who is immediately jealous. After a scene in Teddy's Bar, in which Helen smashes her drink ("What Is This Thing Called Love?" is performed by Peg La Centra in the background), she is angry with Paul at being neglected. Paul points out her married status, but Helen urges him to let her become more involved in his career.
At his new apartment containing numerous photographs of Helen, he confesses his love for her to his mother. Disquieted by rumors he has heard, Victor asks his wife for a divorce. He is suspicious of her real intentions, but Helen admits this is first time she has known real love.
At a rehearsal, Paul is passed a note from Helen claiming good news. She asks to see him immediately, but he crumples the note and continues with the rehearsal of the Carmen Fantasie (adapted for the film by Franz Waxman from Bizet's Carmen). At Teddy's Bar, Helen becomes increasingly drunk, and is unable to tolerate the house pianist performing "Embraceable You". Paul arrives to take her home. This time, it is Helen who is cool; she repeatedly does not really hear his stated wish to marry her.
Helen listens to Boray play his transcription of Wagner's Liebestod on the radio. Recalling her husband's words, Helen realizes her dissolute past can only taint his future, and then walks to her death in the nearby ocean; in her jaded mind, this is the only logical resolution to their problems. Paul, distraught, is comforted by the loyal Jeffers.
Returning to the opening scene, Paul asks Jeffers to tell Bauer not to worry. He is not running away.
melodrama