This Is My Affair

Plot

US President William McKinley (Frank Conroy) is put under great pressure by everyone, even US Bank Examiner Henry Maxwell, to do something about a gang of bank robbers nobody has been able to bring to justice. He sends U.S. Navy Lieutenant Richard L. Perry (Robert Taylor) undercover without notifying anyone, not even the Secret Service.

Perry, using the alias Joe Patrick, makes a pass at singer Lil Duryea (Barbara Stanwyck). Her stepbrother Batiste (Brian Donlevy) not only owns the casino in Saint Paul, Minnesota where she performs, but is also one of the ringleaders of the gang. Lil takes a liking to the young man, but since Batiste's hulking right-hand man, Jock Ramsay (Victor McLaglen), considers her his girl, she tries to brush Joe off. Joe is undeterred and soon persuades her to go out with him whenever Batiste and Jock leave town on one of their robberies.

When Batiste learns that Lil loves Joe and is convinced that he is a bank robber himself, Batiste invites Joe to join the gang. Later, though, Lil tries to talk Joe into running away with her. He agrees, even writing a letter of resignation addressed to McKinley, but changes his mind. He has yet to learn the identity of the mastermind behind the whole thing. As a result, however, Lil breaks up with him.

Joe notifies the President about the next robbery, hoping that when they are caught, he can find out the boss's name. Batiste is killed and Jock wounded when they put up a fight.

In prison, Joe works on Jock, finally getting him to reveal that the Bank Examiner is the mastermind. However, McKinley is shot before getting Joe's letter. Nobody believes Joe's story, and both he and Jock are sentenced to death.

When Lil visits him, he confesses everything and begs her to go to see Admiral George Dewey (Robert McWade). Embittered that he lied to her and got her stepbrother killed, she refuses, but as the executions near, she rushes to Dewey. Together, they go to see the new President, Theodore Roosevelt (Sidney Blackmer). He does not believe her until an official finally remembers McKinley instructing him to read a secret paper in the event of a letter being received with a certain symbol on it and him being unavailable. Convinced, Roosevelt telephones just after Jock's execution and before Joe's. Afterward, Joe and Lil are reunited.

Cast