No Man of Her Own (1950 film)

Plot[edit]

Helen Ferguson, filled with dread, holds her baby as Bill Harkness reads a book. The phone rings, and police tell Bill that they are on the way to their home. She puts the child to bed, praying that the boy will not suffer for her mistakes and whispering that she was desperate.


A year earlier in New York, Helen is eight months pregnant, unmarried, and broke. She goes to her unfaithful boyfriend Stephen Morley, tearfully pleading for help as she stands in the hallway outside his apartment door. He refuses to answer, but slips under the door an envelope for her, one containing a five-dollar bill and a one-way train ticket to San Francisco. Retrieving the envelope, Helen pulls out the ticket, causing the money to fall to the floor, unseen. Helen, humiliated and exhausted, realizes she has no choice but to go to the station and board the train. Helen's train later crashes during the journey, and when she is found by authorities in the wreckage, she is mistaken for another pregnant woman, Patrice Harkness, who was killed in the crash. Helen gives birth to her child in the hospital and is accepted by the Harknesses, the family of the dead woman's husband, Hugh Harkness, who was also killed in the train crash. Since the family has never seen their son's new wife, they believe Helen to be her and, for the sake of her child, she does not reveal her true identity. The family decides her lapses of memory and uncertain behavior are aftereffects of the train wreck. With a better life provided for her son, Helen continues the ruse while Bill Harkness, who is the elder brother of the deceased Hugh, falls in love with her.


Helen's ex-boyfriend, the father of her child, tracks her down several months after the accident. Stephen was called in to identify the body at the morgue after the train accident, but instead of telling the truth, he said that the dead woman was Helen. After figuring out that she is living under an assumed identity and that she has wealthy in-laws, he blackmails Helen into giving him a check for $500 and marrying him. She gets a gun, goes to Stephen's office, where he is living, and finds him dead on his bed but fires the gun at him. Bill comes to the office and helps Helen dispose of the body and conceal evidence of her relationship with Stephen. Bill and his mother have realized that Helen is in trouble and, because they love her regardless of her past, will do anything they can to protect her.


Bill's mother dies of heart failure, but not before writing a letter that she gives to her maid, making her swear to give it to Helen only if police come for her. In the letter, Mrs. Harkness claims to have killed Stephen, which she could not have done. Three months later, when police find his body and the check Helen gave to him, they do come for her. Helen confesses to shooting him, but she is told that her bullet missed him and was found in his mattress, that a bullet of another caliber was found in his body, and that his girlfriend has confessed to shooting him. Bill and Helen embrace.