AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2 - Page 13

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

I just watched the excellent Lavender Hill Mob which is listed for Audrey Hepburn, unfortunately she has only one line and about 15 seconds of screentime so it's another one of the imdb cameos/extras that we've been weeding out of the stars list since we came up with it. I've replaced it on the master lists with Wait Until Dark (a true Audrey Hepburn film with an excellent performance by her) which is her next highest ranked film on imdb.

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Tess of the Storm Country - 7 of 10
stars list - Mary Pickford

a solid film that's a bit overwrought in the melodramatic plot devices and villainous characters. Once again Mary Pickford saves this film with her phenomenal screen presence and magnetism. she almost makes you forget how ridiculous the story is, and she almost makes everything in the film work. but it's not quite there. not as impressive of a visual level as Daddy Long Legs and less humor, still Pickford cuts an impressive figure as a modern woman, she's certainly stands up for what she believes in, and she's often left standing alone by circumstances, but she'd rather be an outcast and true to her own independence than bending to the ideas of any other. The film also contains quite a lot of moralizing and religious education, which isn't so bad but due to the intertitles comes across as rather ham-fisted.
The transfer/film elements are also in very bad shape with the print often looking very disappointing, even for a 1922 film.

Tess Skinner is a squatter living with her father in a ramshackle 'house' on the edge of the coast. The wealthy man who owns the land wants the squatters out but can't manage it. his son is against accosting the squatters and his daughter (and her beau) are all for it. He conspires with the beau and the local game wardens to take the nets of the squatters and hopefully starve them into moving, Tess manages to hide her fathers nets, but they know they didn't get one net. They wait to hopefully catch them in the act of using the nets and be able to arrest them for breaking the law. Only when Tess' father is out setting his nets and the law is coming down on him, a local brute grabs Daddy Skinner's rifle and shoots the beau (unbeknownst to Daddy Skinner). Skinner takes the rap for the murder and the unmarried daughter is now left pregnant with no man to marry her and the son has fallen in love with Tess! Oh my! what melodramatic machinations will the plot twist to next? the film is often quite entertaining and interesting to watch, but it's not a great silent, by any means.

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Orphans of the Storm - 3 of 10
stars list - Lillian Gish

I felt so triumphant for getting through the entire interminable runtime that I bumped the rating a whole point.

A 70 minute story stretched out to 160 makes Orphans of the Storm one of the weakest titles of the entire Stars list. Lillian Gish's performance is very good (as is that of her sister) but not as memorable as either of two Pickford films I've recently seen.

Two orphans are rescued by a destitute farmer from the the steps of Notre Dame cathedral, one is the bastard child of an aristocrat the other I forget who belongs to, perhaps the destitute farmer's own child. Anyway the two twerps are raised as sisters and we flash forward to the future (just before the french revolution) where something, presumably scarlett fever has left Louise, the aristocrat orphan, blind. They are not so destitute any more but comfortably middle class based on their clothing. Being that this is a silent film there is a magic cure for blindness available, but to get it they have to go to Paris. They go to Paris and are promptly separated by a nefarious aristocrat with designs of raping the notblind sister (Lillian Gish), he takes her to a party and tries to rape her publically to the bemusement of almost all the aristocrats but one (the son of the same countess making him the half brother of Louise) who gets notblind out of the vicious 'party' she then spends three or four hours of screen time looking for her sister. Meantime her sister has been taken by a nefarious and ultra ugly beggar woman (so you know she's evil, cuz she's ugly, this is Griffith afterall) and is mistreated and forced to be a beggar (her blindness is an asset to the begging trade). Naturally she runs into the magic blindness cure doctor and her mother at somepoint as well as her sister, only her sister is unable to reunite this early in the film because she's been arrested on trumped up charges as a fallen woman. Robespierre doesn't like notblind because she didn't give him the right gossip about her and shut a door in his face, how criminal! They did a great job casting Robespierre, at least one point of the rating is for just how viciously nasty and disgusting he comes off every time he's on screen, a prissy ass. Anyway then the French Revolution happens and its not very exciting. Eventually the lovers wind up in front of the 'court' that guillotines everyone, and they are so sentanced (naturally the court is the point when the sisters finally reunite), and in a classic and unsurprising griffith move there is lengthy cross cutting to create nonsuspense about whether or not the noble Dalton will be able to secure a pardon for our lovers and get it to the guillotine on time! of course he does and everyone lives happily ever after, and the sisters become sisters in truth when everyone gets married in the end.

Ugh, the film was terrible, long, boring, and endlessly frustrating at all the nonstop melodramatic plot devices designed to prevent any progression from being made and forcing a repeat over and over (and over and over) of scenes of notblind weeping about Louise and Louise being all mistreated by the beggars. Thank god I'll never have to watch that again.

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

This year's new list and TV special is coming a couple weeks earlier, airing on Tuesday June 17th on CBS at 8pm

I was looking at the lists again and came up with one or two movies per category that I know aren't going to make it but I think absolutely should make it on the final top ten. These are the ones I'm prepared to be disappointed by the AFI:

Animated: The Iron Giant
Fantasy: Harvey
Gangster: Miller's Crossing
Sci fi: AI Artificial Intelligence, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Western: Bend of the River, Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (holding out hope this one may possibly make it in)
Sports: Bull Durham
Mystery: Big Lebowski, Se7en
Romantic Comedy: Shop Around the Corner
Courtroom Drama: A Man for All Seasons
Epic: Dances with Wolves

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

I rather liked Shall we Dance more than you did, I think, but didn't care quite so much for Out of Africa.

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Oh I agree, Astaire has a weak voice and you're spot on with the cohesion problem, I haven't absolutely loved any of them, though many of the dance numbers are breathtaking and some of the songs, such as the one in Shall we Dance, have such clever lyrics and are sold so well by the on screen business that it makes up somewhat for the weaknesses of the plot and the leads' voices, but I don't think any of them count amongst the greatest musicals.

And I couldn't agree more on the long takes of the dance numbers

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Hearing most of these songs for the first time from Astaire/Rogers was quite a treat, but in many ways I loved the performance aspects moreso than the quality of the vocals, Astaire could really sell a song and act while singing and dancing, which is what makes him so memorable even if his vocals aren't top notch it doesn't really matter. I think that's even more true of Al Jolson, particularly in Hallelujah I'm a Bum, he never really sings any of the songs, they're all performances/entertainments, and that's just fine.

Unrelated, but my favorite song I discovered on the entire song list is Thanks for the Memory from the Big Broadcast of 1938, I bought it on itunes and have listened to it many times. It's such an amazing song, the phrasing is exquisite.

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Separate Tables - 7 of 10
stars list - Rita Hayworth

Hayworth plays an aging model, and remarkably she lets herself look old with a bleach job to her hair and a few lines, and more importantly her eyes look old, she looks tired and scared and worn down, she comes across as old even though she looks young. A very bold performance, whose very boldness (and film noir sensibilities) is out of step with the rest of the film, but a very solid piece of work by Hayworth.

Burt Lancaster is her exhusband, a former pennslyvania steel mill kid he got a bump in class when the carniverous Hayworth allowed him to marry her, knowing she would take pleasure in breaking such a strong man, bending him to her will, and as Lancaster put it, "denying me my conjugal rights." Lancaster got a couple years in jail for domestic assault which is what broke them up and now he's a writer living at a hotel in England where people go to live, and to be alone. Lancaster is his usual magnificent self, making the role and whole movie come alive, he injects scenes with energy and life, and when he's not on screen you keep waiting for him to show up again and make things interesting once more.

Wendy Hiller, in a magnificent role that she doesn't have enough time with (grrr) is the hotel owner, she and Lancaster are in love and engaged, and the reason that Hayworth has come to England is in the hopes of breaking them up. She's so damn good she's virtually in another movie, a realist movie rather than the heightened melodrama sensibility of most of the performing cast. She's the only one in the same movie as Lancaster and in some ways she's outdoing him and he's just keeping up. Outstanding work, it is infinitely frustrating her role was not larger.

If that were all this movie was it could be so much better unfortunately a potentially great story is mucked up with a handful of other characters that are more annoying than they are interesting (though with the cast it should be much better)

David Niven plays a barely coded repressed gay retired colonel, "I was always afraid of women," "there's a chap in London I could stay with, but I'd rather not, you know birds of a feather..." and the colonel is playing the role of a stereotypical old guard british officer from the the crimean war, and everyone thinks he is quite silly until they read in the paper how he was recently arrested for some innappropriate behavior in a movie house, then things turn nasty. Niven is adequete and unused here, and it's a shame because he could be a lot better.

Deborah Kerr plays a repressed and asexual woman-child. the sort that has fits because their mother so dominates them, and they're in general terrified of life and unprepared for it, again due to the domination by the imperial mother figure. She's in love with the colonel, but can't do anything about it, nothing at all, she's incapable. Kerr is downright hammy in this role, way over the top and her presence instantly takes you out of the picture because she's always acting, so broadly you can't help but notice she's acting.

there's also a straight up butch lesbian (which is exactly what the film wants you to think, it couldn't be clearer, she looks and sounds like Hitchcock). she easily steals every scene and improves the film immeasurably with her presence, which is in far too few scenes. There is also an average English aged gentleman, a horny young couple who are 'free spirits' (not married) and the aforementioned diabolical mother, who at least through her annoying machinations keeps the plot machine tediously grinding on.

Overall a well made film that is entertaining and worth seeing for Lancaster alone, Hayworth is also very good in a brave role and Hiller just makes the whole movie work better.


---
Operation Crossbow - 5 of 10
stars list - Sophia Loren

I thought this entire film was fictional. imagine my surprise when I went to wikipedia afterwards and discovered there were V1, V2 and a V10 rockets. I was stunned that there was any factual basis for this, much less a historical basis.

The film is about the allied intelligence's attempt to infilitrate and stop the German rocketry program. They recruit some engineers and train them then plant them with false identities in Holland for the Germans to pick up and take to their underground factory. The film gets points for not having every scene be in English, perhaps half the film is done in German. it is constantly surprising and the death toll of the heroes is very high.

Sophia Loren gets first billing but has only a supporting role, about twenty minutes of screentime in the middle of the film. She plays the exwife of one of the identities one of the engineer-spies will be using and she shows up at his door step at just the wrong time (a mistake she'll pay for). She naturally knows he's not her exhusband and he's forced to take her captive and try to convince her to cooperate (or his holland contact will kill her) and in the process tehy sort of gently grow fond of each other. Loren is excellent and her scenes are the dramatic highpoint of the film.

The rest of the film has an okay thriller tension to it. nothing remarkable. nor is it especially remarkable as a war film. many of the sets are very James Bond and the lighting is very flat and inexpressive. It's an expansive film that freely moves between the german development team, the allied intelligence agency and eventually the stories of the spies. there are a lot explosions at the end but ultimately it's just not that cohesive or compelling of a film.

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

no love for To Kill a Mockingbird, Lew?

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My Best Girl - 10 of 10
stars list - Mary Pickford

Every Pickford film has been a surprise but this was the best of the lot (so far, still have Sparrows left). A tremendously funny silent romantic comedy pairs Pickford with Charles Rogers the man she would later marry after divorcing Fairbanks.

Pickford is a working class stock girl at a five and dime store (owned by the Merrill family), she gets a chance to watch a sales desk for a few minutes and tries to sell a customer on some trinkets, he's amused at her flirtatious manner but she's soon put off when she finds out he's just been hired to work with her in the stock room. she shows Joe Grant the ropes and sparks are flying from the get go. But it turns out Joe Grant is actually Joe Merrill and his father has told him he has to prove his worth in the family store without the help of the family name before he can marry his high brow fiancee. As Joe's mother says, "her family name is almost as good as mine."

Only Joe and Maggie fall for each other in charming and half unexpected ways of a romantic comedy. There are sequences that are perfectly timed, filmed, acted and expressed that are surprising in their pitch perfect humor and execution. It's almost as good as Chaplin. indeed this feels very much like a Chaplin made film, so many of the sequences have such a similar charm and life to them. Sam Taylor, director of the Freshman and Safety Last, also made this picture and imo it's quite a bit better than either of them. The film opens on a cash register flashing up sales prices, and the camera pulls back to reveal the register, the editing space and camera movements throughout the opening sequence establish the store, and bring us into Maggie's position as a cog in that store, a little awkward and slightly the worse for wear but relentlessly upbeat. There are all sorts of elegant little editing and cinematographic devices that make this a pleasure to watch, it reminds you of how good filmmaking was getting in the late silent period. There's also a paucity of intertitles compared to earlier silents (such as Tess) which allows scenes and performances to play out and build much more effectively in dialogue scenes. And the writing on the intertitles is excellent, often as humorous as the scenes themselves.

Pickford is outstanding here, in what I think is her best performance, particularly in the final big scene where she tries to drive Joe away by performing a "I'm really a golddigger' routine for him.

One of the best surprises of the stars list.

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El Cid - 6 of 10
Stars list - Sophia Loren

one caveat, the disc netflix sent me is a region zero atrocity compressing the film in 4x3 letterbox onto a single layer dvd. the 'disc art' also has chinese characters under the title. This certainly isn't the WB release from back in january.

Loren is very good in this role, better than any of the others on the list (though I think I liker her Houseboat performance best, though I attribute that to both the lighter material and also Cary Grant's generousity as a performer in giving her ways to shine). but it is still not a very remarkable performance.

Sophia Loren and Charleton Heston co-star in this period epic from Anthony Mann. El Cid is definitely a big improvement on Fall of the Roman Empire, partially because this has a decent script and partially because i'm in a slightly more generous frame of mind. It also has a tremendous (and often overbearing) Miklos Rosza score. Unfortunately I feel Charleton Heston was miscast here. He is excellent and this is one of his better roles, but he just seems to be in Moses/Judah zone and it's hard to separate out those iconographic portrayals from this character who represents justice in Spain.

The moors of Spain are being rallied by an African emir to wage jihad on the spanish, the emir leaders of the Muslim population of spain are conflicted upon this holy injunction. The film cuts to a dying priest upon the alter of his burned out and 'bombed out' church. a bloody sword in a swarthy hand comes into view and approaches the priest, as he comes within striking distance a reverse shot reveals to us Charleton Heston playing Spanish noble Rodrigo Diaz. He gives assistence to the priest and reveals his party (while on the way to collect his fiancee for their impending marraige) came upon the raid and has taken six moorish prisoners including a leader. He returns to his father's estate/castle with the refugees and prisoners and attempts to hand over the prisoners but his father refuses saying they are his to dispose of. The crowd is crying for lynching. a cavalry patrol belatedly shows up to sieze control of the prisoners in the name of the king so they can be lynched outside the palace/castle. Rodrigo resists and then extracts oaths from his prisoners--oaths of fealty to the king of spain and oaths to never again raise arms against spanish christians. Rodrigo then frees them and is instantly branded a traitor by the other representative of the king. The script later clumsily informs us this man is also a rival for Rodrigo's fiancee. It's also fascinating that pretty much all of Spain is accessible to all the rest of Spain by a mere hour's ride, they're such a tight knit community. Additionally news travels faster than a horse can ride in fourteenth century spain (or whenever this was) as people consistently know things before a rider shows up to inform them (and the audience) of some brand new news. I guess they had telephones back then too!. Rodrigo's just mercy causes the Muslim leader to name him El Cid to honor him.

Through such a method of mysterious instantaneous news travel we cut to the fiancee, Sophia Loren playing Jimena (don't try to pronounce that phonetically it's all sorts of wrong) who is loyally devoted to her Rodrigo despite what rumor says he did. Her father--champion of the king--is more easily swayed by heresy and instantly and irrevocably believes Rodrigo is a traitor. Rodrigo is tried and during the trial rodrigo's father calls Jimena's father a liar, and Jimina's father strikes Rodrigo's. Such an enmity and rift is unforgivable and rodrigo is forced by the necessities of honor to duel Jimina's father to regain his father's honor. Rodrigo is willing to end with merely a first blood duel, but Jimina's father will only fight to the death. Rodrigo dispatches him, and after their lengthy and noisy (and very exciting) sword fight--with hand-and-half swords not rapiers--father calls out to his daughter Rodrigo mysteriously disappears from the premises without exiting the scene and Jimena descends stunned to discover her father mortally wounded, he demands she avenge him. Because Rodrigo is such a well written and consistent character in his intellectual capacity he is stunned that Jimena no longer wants to marry him.

All this leads into Rodrigo becoming champion to the king in order to defend the crown's claim to one of those tiny border countries/citystates in between France and Spain (starts with an A) as a trial by combat of his charge of treason. there is a spectacular joust, sword fight, broad sword fight in the trial by combat, perhaps the finest part of which is when the battered rodrigo grabs up his saddle and uses it as a shield. there's a desperation to the trial that makes it the most effective set piece of the film.

Rodrigo becomes the king's champion, and Jimena plots against him, the plots fail and Rodrigo forces a marraige to her, she acquiesces but he discovers on his wedding night that she married him in order to get her vengeance for her father, he was welcome to take her as 'husband's rights' (aka rape) but she would never willinging couple with him or enjoy or participate in loving him. El Cid leaves her and she returns to her beloved nunnery.

Various machinations involving the death of kings, sibling rivalries of the heirs, resentments of El Cid and the attack of the hordes lead by the African emir make up the rest of the film. eventually cid and Jimina get back together and have a couple kids and Cid is exiled by a jealous heir. But Cid saves the country and sacrifices his own life to do it.

The direction is solid but the editing is borderline incompetent, this could also be a function of the schizophrenic script, the cinematography is outstanding, at least from what I could tell from the bizarre chinese dvd. The acting is pretty good, and excellent from many of the supporting players but also frequently over the top. There is an interesting element of coded incest between the surviving brother and sister heirs to the throne. The large epic battle scenes are not nearly as well done as the single combat battles or small skirmishes, Mann knows how to shoot small groups of men fighting each other, but large armies are relegated to marching past a camera on a crane and risers high above them. On the other hand the cutting on the army sequences and especially the single combat sequences is excellent and outstanding respectively. it is the transitions between scenes, development of story progression and building a coherent narrative out of the whole in which the editing ultimately fails to execute well.

On the whole an enjoyable film in the Ten Commandments vein, but no where near as good as that film, even if it is shorter.

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Fort Apache - 8 of 10
stars list - Shirley Temple

Jesus, I wrote a lot about El Cid.

A John Ford film I had never managed to see, this was a fine experience. The opening moments, as we ride into the fort and keep meeting 'new' members of the stock company feels like coming back home after a long time, it's one of the most pleasant aspects of Ford films the first time you see one.

Shirley Temple plays Philadelphia Thursday, she's the daughter of Colonel Thursday (Henry Fonda) who has been assigned to Fort Apache. John Wayne is a commanding Major there and he and Thursday do not see eye to eye on Indian Affairs. Thursday is pompous, uncompromising, racist, elitist, hateful fool and he thinks by virtue of his skin color and rank that he is more intelligent than the Indians. He ignores evidence of mistreatment and hatches a plot to offer them another chance only to deliberately betray and attack them. His underestimation of the Indians comes back to bite him in the ass, and Ford presents his last stand as delusional, foolish and pathetic rather than grand. It's a tribute to Wayne's performance that so much subtext is layered underneath the dialogue he has to say about Thursday's gallantry in the film's coda. Unfortunately the screenwriter and Ford gave Wayne an over the top monologue to close out the coda, it would have worked much better if Wayne had simply responded to the reporter's question by going to the window and staring out of it and we see the reflection of the marching columns in the window. It almost feels as though Ford thought Wayne's anguished position of having to defend Thursday was undercut by his speechifying about the everliving regiment and that much of what was subtextual in Wayne's performance (and in the story) here is brought out to examine--clearly and expressly, the last time--in the Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.

Shirley Temple is outstanding in her supporting role, she's a fine actress and does as much with her eyes and her bearing as she does with her dialogue. One of her best performances. I don't find it surprising at all that Ford got her best child performance out of her with Wee Willie Winkie and a decade later produced her finest adult performance.

Very entertaining, often funny, often grim, often attacking the 'old man' entrenched thinking/leadership of the army while heftily supporting the intelligence and humanity of the common soldier and NCOs. The film is sharp and outstanding, the editing is excellent and the photography of monoment valley while breathtaking seems almost second hand it's so familiar. It also features one of Henry Fonda's finest performances.
The film would be a nine without Wayne's final monologue. It is yet another Ford film I would like to own.

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Sparrows - 8 of 10
Stars list - Mary Pickford

The last Mary Pickford film (left on the list for me) is another good one, though it starts off awkward (much like Tess of the Storm Country) once it gets a rhythm going and the characters established the film and story really take off.

Molly is the oldest child on a 'baby farm' in the deep and swampy american south, she and several other orphans are slave labor to the horrible Mr. Grimes and his equally awful wife and son. The children all range in age from an infant to nine, and Pickford is presumably supposed to be 11 or 12. (she was such a very tiny person!). they are abused and mistreated, the baby is dying (and eventually does die, during a dream sequence of Molly's in which the barn wall fades away to view a pastoral scene of Christ with his flock of sheep and he comes to Molly and takes the babe from her arms, she then wakes up and realizes the babe is dead). It is revealed the Mr. Grimes is conspiring as part of a kidnap plot to snatch a wealthy baby and hold it for ransom, the idea being to hide the toddler at Grimes' baby farm. Molly is given the task of caring for the infant, but the heat on the kidnapping picks up and Grimes resolves to pitch the baby into the swamp, as he has done with many troublesome children. his son overhears and resolves to revenge himself upon Molly and get in Pa's good graces by pitching the baby into the swamp himself. He tries, but is thwarted and Molly escapes to the barn loft, but Grimes outdoes her and manages to trap her and the other children up there and starve them out. However Molly devises a way to escape from the barn through the swamp and the children have to survive a harrowing and dangerous journey across the mire.

The film is quite good, and once the kidnapped baby shows up to kick the plot into action the film gets much better, Pickford shows yet again that she was one of the greatest of the screen's stars as she had a truly magnetic screen presence that only a few actors have ever had. Today we would say she could 'open any movie' which is something that can be reliably claimed about Will Smith in 2008 (Tom Hanks used to be at that level, but hasn't made as many films and has faded). Pickford could handle comedy, romance, drama and thrills with absolutely no trouble whatsoever, and her films are still very entertaining and hold up much better than something like Orphans of the Storm or Way Down East.

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Sudden Fear - 5 of 10
Stars list - Joan Crawford

much like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Joan Crawford plays a person too stupid to have graduated from elementary school. and once again this person finds themselves mixed up in a thriller plot, in this case murder. Joan is a playwright she falls in love with an actor marries him and they live in San Francisco. Only his lover from NYC follows him out there and soon the two are conspiring to knock off Joan because they don't want her new will (with very ungenerous terms) to go into effect when she signs it after the weekend. Joan gets wind of their conspiracy, manages to destroy the evidence of it and then has to jump through a bunch of hoops to try to devise a plan to try to bump off the couple instead (but she's a weak woman and can't go through with it, *sob*). It has a pretty good ending chase, but it's not worth it to have to suffer through the first turgid hour and a half. Joan is pretty good here, but not remarkable.

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That Hamilton Woman - 6 of 10
stars list - Vivien Leigh

One of Vivien Leigh's better performances and the movie is pretty good. Pure Korda, but pretty good. It starts off great, then about an hour and twenty minutes in becomes clunky and boring and dull before the pace picks up again for the climax.

The film opens with a street walker being arrested. Cooling her heels in prison she starts to tell her story, the story of someone who was once the most beautiful woman in all of England--Lady Hamilton.

The film flashes back to Emily arriving in Naples to meet Lord Hamilton, Britain's embassy to Naples. She is full of life and vigor because she is pledged to marry Hamilton's nephew. She is soon disabused of that notion. she has been sold to Lord Hamilton by her fiancee for 5000 pounds. She soon comes to accept this and becomes his mistress and eventually his wife.

Some years later, childless and powerful, Lady Hamilton comes across a British captain (Olivier) who has ruined her dinner party plans by announcing that England has declared war with France (ergo, the French ambassador can't attend). Lady Hamilton uses her influence to cut through red tape and get the captain the troops Naples is obligated to provide. And Captain Horatio Nelson whirls just as quickly out of her life.

The captain returns years later, sans an arm and an eye and once again Lady Hamilton has come to his rescue. This time she is finagling supplies to the British fleet after Naples had initially stonewalled them on aid. Nelson goes on to smash the French fleet in the Nile and returns to Naples to celebrate. He falls ill. As Lady Hamilton nurses him back to health they fall in love, the gossip starts to rise, and the melodramatic affair takes over the movie. Eventually we get to London and the expected shunning takes place and he gets called up again and we have the climatic naval battle in which the captain perishes and Lady Hamilton is left destitute.

Olivier is excellent. Leigh is very good. it's just that what had been fascinating becomes tiresome as the story shifts gears into drippy "I wuv you. No, I wuv you" land.