  a great curiosity, 2008-05-09
whenever i watch 'anthony adverse' on television, i wonder why warner brothers sought to film it.
for the many things that are huge advantages in this film, it boasts equally large disavantages.
for its list of advantages, one has to start with olivia de havilland. her part is woefully small, yet knowing it would be a prestige picture (?), bette davis supposedly wanted it. but davis was greedy. if jack warner had bought the rights to 'the hairy ape' she would have wanted the lead in that. no matter--de havilland is gorgeous and dewy. she is everything the role needs. she is matched by anita louise as the tragic maria, mother of the title character who dies in childbirth. and they have male beauty counterparts in louis hayward and donald woods.
for out and out acting, the film has claude rains and gale sondergaard as the scheming lovers that lust for the fortunes of bonnyfeather.
then there is the hyper-romantic score by erich wolfgang korngold, which is an experience in itself. it is helped along by opera sequences, one of which was composed by hugo friedhofer and it's hauntingly beautiful. plus the set design, the camera work and the costumes are lush.
so why in the world did the powers at warners give the lead to fredric march? march, handsome as he was, does not make sense in this role until the end. it wwould have been so much better to borrow tyrone power or coach the performance from errol flynn. flynn definitely could have worked this role out.
and on a minor note, there is a minor character during the cuba sequence that desperately needed to be played by either fredi washington or nina mae mckinney. or even theresa harris--with fear of having a white actor playing scenes of lust with a black actress. tough!!! the actress that plays this role is not good. she's wooden and she's got this middle european accent that is detrimental to the drama at this point.
Adventure and Romance, 2003-06-07
ANTHONY ADVERSE is a good movie with lots of adventure and romance. It has a strong cast boasting some of the best actors from the pre-World War II era such as Fredric March, Olivia de Haviland, Claude Rains, Louis Hayward and Akim Tamiroff. Much is said about the miscasting of Fredric March but he looks suitable enough to me in the role of Anthony Adverse.Gale Sondergaard collected an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The film also won Oscars for Cinematography, Score and Editing as well as Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Art Direction and Assistant Director (William Cannon). Mervyn Leroy directed some classic movies including LITTLE CAESAR and MISTER ROBERTS. Although not quite in that same lofty category, ANTHONY ADVERSE certainly merited all of the awards and recognition it managed to garner in 1936. The main competition for Oscars in that year came from THE GREAT ZIEGFIELD, THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR and MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN.
30 Minutes too long, 2007-12-24
This is generally a mediocre movie based, I presume, on a mediocre book. At first I thought that it seemed a lot like an Alexander Dumas type of plot but it got too side-tracked by a series of scenes in Havana and Africa. I suspect the book may have laid out those events in a more meaningful manner but the movie certainly compressed into irrelevence. Better to have jetisonned the segment in Africa. After all, a voyage to the New World and back after taking care of business would have been enough time to facilitate the purpose in the plot. The ending of the movie made a weak statement and was not the ending that should have been. Too much was left unexplained but, by then we lost patience with the film anyway.
I rated this movie a notch higher than I would have because of one scene that greatly impressed me. The scene in which our hero, Anthony Adverse, was born was a classic. The subtle yet brilliant statement that this superbly directed scene made was so excellent that I played it over and over. I don't know if Mervyn Leroy or Michael Curtiz gets the credit for this one but it was worth watching the movie. The rest was downhill.
Intriguing historical romance with miscast March in the lead..., 2007-08-26
Surely, the studio that had Errol Flynn under contract could have chosen a more dashing romantic lead for ANTHONY ADVERSE.
As it is, Fredric March, usually such a fine actor, was unable to give more than a leaden performance in the title role. He has never appeared less enthusiastic and does a completely uninspired job as the hero. Sad to say, there are no sparks between March and de Havilland (as Angela)--and furthermore, he seems too old for the role despite clever make-up attempts to make him look suitable.
But aside from the fact that he is miscast, there is a lot to admire about the film itself. For one thing, Claude Rains and Gale Sondergaard make the most memorable pair of villains ever seen in a 1930s movie. The sequence where they cause a coach and driver to go off a cliff is given an extra punch by their dialog. "He was my favorite coachman," says Rains dryly. "The coach was rather handy too," quips Sondergaard. Giving other outstanding performances are Edmund Gwenn, Louis Hayward, Anita Louise, Donald Woods and Akim Tamiroff. Edmund Gwenn is particularly touching as Mr. Bonnyfeather.
Some of the acting styles seem dated, as are the titles that connect the time span. It must have been quite a job to trim the story down to a little over two hours. The best-seller was a bulky 1,200, forcing the scriptwriter to exclude whole segments of the book. Strange how the celebrated novel by Hervey Allen is barely remembered today.
Olivia de Havilland makes a gorgeous Angela in one of her earliest roles and all of the opera scenes are interesting to watch but she is not quite credible as Napoleon's mistress. The story is a cumbersome one and the pace, under Mervyn LeRoy's direction, is rather slow. Nevertheless, it's an interesting historical drama of the Napoleonic era with Rains and Sondergaard giving the best performances. I've written articles on both Raines and Sondergaard, published in CLASSIC IMAGES, inspired by their work in this film. Sondergaard went on to win Best Supporting Actress for her job as Faith, the cunningly evil housekeeper.
And last, but not least, Erich Wolfgang Korngold's rich background score adds dimension to every aspect of the story, fully justifying the Oscar for Best Original Score of 1936.
Summing up: Some weaknesses, but still an important film from the Golden Age of movies.
Entertaining Adventure Film, 2004-07-26
Engrossing tale of an orphaned boy who grows into manhood, played by Fredric March (Anthony Adverse), without knowing his real origins, and all the adventures he has to go through, before finding "himself", what truly matters in life and what is worth fighting for...one's morals, which cannot be "traded" for power or money...all this he learns thanks to two priests: Father Xavier (Henry O'Neill) who raises him from a baby until he turns 10 years old; Father Francois (Pedro de Córdoba), a clergyman who saves March from "himself" and his sweetheart, Angela (a lovely, beautiful, young, luminous Olivia de Havilland).
Great score by masterful Erich Wolfgang Korngold, great scenarios, clothes, settings (the film spans from 1773, when Louis XV of France was King until the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte). The film is set in France, Spain, the Alps, Northern Italy, Cuba, Africa...and the period detail and the sets are awesome, thanks to master Anton Grot.
An uniformly great cast headed by one of my all time fave actors: Fredric March. Also in it , talented Olivia de Havilland, at the beginning of her career, the great Claude Rains as an evil Marquis, the equally evil Gale Sondergaard (who won the first Supporting Actress Academy Award for her nasty characterization of Gwenn's ambitious housekeeper, kind of roles she would repeat later in such films as Tyrone Power's "The Mark of Zorro"), lovely Anita Louise as our hero's mother "in distress", a young Louis Hayward as the hero's father, Edmund Gwenn as the hero's grandfather, Donald Woods as the hero's pal, Akim Tamiroff as a florid Cuban, Steffi Duna as a sultry native, and O'Neill and de Córdoba as the two "guiding" priests in March's life etc.
One can see that Warner Brothers spent a lot of money in this lavish costume epic, that lasts around 2 hours 15 minutes. Nevertheless, in spite of its length it's highly entertaining and enjoyable.
Although not perfect and certainly not as good as "The Sea Hawk", "Captain Blood" or "The Adventures of Robin Hood"...still on the greatest rousing adventure films of the 1930's, a blockbuster that deserves five stars. The quality of the print is excellent.
A must for adventure films fans!
|
![Anthony Adverse [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GVA7RPGNL._SL160_.jpg "Anthony Adverse [VHS]")
![Read more information about Anthony Adverse [VHS] at Amazon.com](/images/read-more.gif "Read more information about Anthony Adverse [VHS] at Amazon.com"){kind=small}