Nora Prentiss (1947)

Beyond any emergency situation, San Francisco-based physician Dr. Richard Talbot leads an extremely regimented life, whether it be at his practice with his bachelor partner, Dr. Joel Merriam, or at home with his wife, Lucy Talbot, and their two teenage offspring, Bunny Talbot and Gregory Talbot, Lucy in particular who fosters that staid, routinized and thus boring existence. When Richard meets nightclub singer Nora Prentiss in one of those emergency situations, she tells him as much as she sees him from afar all the time and figuratively sets her watch by his movements. In Richard meeting Nora, inner feelings of a more carefree existence emerge. When his attempts for that more carefree life fail with Lucy, he instead falls into Nora's arms, she who also craves greater domesticity in life beyond her singing career. Their relationship, which is negatively affecting his ability to function in other aspects of his life, reaches a stage where he plans to leave Lucy and their children to be with Nora. Just before Richard is about to tell Lucy everything which he knows will hurt her, he stumbles onto what he believes is an opportunity to be with Nora while sparing Lucy and the children that hurt associated with the knowledge that he willingly left. Richard will find that this last-minute choice has consequences all its own in risking him and Nora having that happily ever after he so desires.