Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 2, 2020 9:00:14 GMT -8
Here’s a good one: The Heiress stars Olivia de Havilland as the heiress, Montgomery Clift as the guy who comes a-courtin’, and Ralph Richardson as the skeptical and protective father.
This is a good enough movie that you should just go watch it without any background information. That said, it’s the kind of movie that shows you don’t need a super complicated and involved plot for the movie to be interesting.
William Wyler directs this story of Catherine Sloper (de Havilland) who is meek, dowdy, and getting a little past her sell-by date in terms of getting married. She is socially awkward, doesn’t get out much, and spends much of her time at doing the one thing she’s good at: embroidery. Via her acting and a bit of makeup, they sell her as dowdy which you would think would be difficult given de Havilland’s natural good looks.
She meets Morris Townsend (Clift) at a party and he’s apparently immediately smitten by her. For her part, she does warm to him and then is quickly swept off her feet via the unique phenomenon of a man praising her and paying her compliments.
Her father, the Dr. Austin Sloper (Richardson), continues to compare his daughter unfavorably to his late wife. Let’s just say that Catherine’s self-esteem is in the tank for a lot of reasons. The father believes Morris Townsend is just after her money, for why would such a handsome young man find his daughter so appealing? She comes to understand this as one of her father’s prime objections and this drives a wedge between them. She’ll have Morris if only to spite him.
Then we spend much of the movie wondering if Dr. Austin Sloper is being too hard on Morris or if Morris is indeed searching for a fortune to support what would appear to be a more libertine, indulgent lifestyle.
Richardson and de Havilland are brilliant in their roles. And it may be hard to fault Clift for the script. But his character is so one-dimensional, there is little fun in the mystery of whether he is a scoundrel or really does care for Catherine. At the end of the film, we still don’t know, although I highly suspect that he is a scoundrel.
Another (for me) almost fatal flaw is the shift in Catherine from shy, demurring heiress to tiger. Indeed, when Morris breaks his promise, it’s a crushing blow for her. But she veers so far over to the other side, it seems inconsistent with her character. Had this been a film about someone flipping into multiple personalities, it would have made more sense.
But this is all melodrama. The kind of subtly that I think would have added to the richness of the characters and the plot are given over to Big Drama. Even so, they still botched the ending. I was fairly sure that when Catherine gave Morris some of her jewels at the very end that she was setting him up for a fake robbery charge or something like that. It would have been a righteous bit of vindictiveness. Instead, she just carries the candlestick up the stairway as she leaves Morris pounding on the door. The end.
Olivia de Havilland won the Best Actress Oscar. The movie got numerous awards including for best costumes. This really does appear to be an authentic period piece (mid 1800’s) including (according to one reviewer) authentic hair styles for back then. Richardson was nominated for Best Actor and Wyler for Best Director. It’s an excellent effort and of the few movies I would recommend as “good.”
Still, I think they left the motives of Morris too ambiguous. The dialogue is a bit lacking in depth. They could have explored the fact that 30,000 pounds a years is an amount that would add to any girl’s attraction and that if some semi-monied (Morris has none) man came a-courtin’ there would have been fewer questions asked.
So there were some missed opportunities there to explore the various shades of love, money, and just plain pragmatic partnership. To their credit, some of this is introduced via Aunt Lavinia who is basically of the mind that even if the fellow is after her money, she’s better off with a little bit of happiness than just dragging on with the dour status quo of the dowdy heiress. And I have to agree with her.
And I thought while watching this, Is that Lt. Tragg? By golly, that is Ray Collins you see there in a small role.
This is a good enough movie that you should just go watch it without any background information. That said, it’s the kind of movie that shows you don’t need a super complicated and involved plot for the movie to be interesting.
William Wyler directs this story of Catherine Sloper (de Havilland) who is meek, dowdy, and getting a little past her sell-by date in terms of getting married. She is socially awkward, doesn’t get out much, and spends much of her time at doing the one thing she’s good at: embroidery. Via her acting and a bit of makeup, they sell her as dowdy which you would think would be difficult given de Havilland’s natural good looks.
She meets Morris Townsend (Clift) at a party and he’s apparently immediately smitten by her. For her part, she does warm to him and then is quickly swept off her feet via the unique phenomenon of a man praising her and paying her compliments.
Her father, the Dr. Austin Sloper (Richardson), continues to compare his daughter unfavorably to his late wife. Let’s just say that Catherine’s self-esteem is in the tank for a lot of reasons. The father believes Morris Townsend is just after her money, for why would such a handsome young man find his daughter so appealing? She comes to understand this as one of her father’s prime objections and this drives a wedge between them. She’ll have Morris if only to spite him.
Then we spend much of the movie wondering if Dr. Austin Sloper is being too hard on Morris or if Morris is indeed searching for a fortune to support what would appear to be a more libertine, indulgent lifestyle.
Richardson and de Havilland are brilliant in their roles. And it may be hard to fault Clift for the script. But his character is so one-dimensional, there is little fun in the mystery of whether he is a scoundrel or really does care for Catherine. At the end of the film, we still don’t know, although I highly suspect that he is a scoundrel.
Another (for me) almost fatal flaw is the shift in Catherine from shy, demurring heiress to tiger. Indeed, when Morris breaks his promise, it’s a crushing blow for her. But she veers so far over to the other side, it seems inconsistent with her character. Had this been a film about someone flipping into multiple personalities, it would have made more sense.
But this is all melodrama. The kind of subtly that I think would have added to the richness of the characters and the plot are given over to Big Drama. Even so, they still botched the ending. I was fairly sure that when Catherine gave Morris some of her jewels at the very end that she was setting him up for a fake robbery charge or something like that. It would have been a righteous bit of vindictiveness. Instead, she just carries the candlestick up the stairway as she leaves Morris pounding on the door. The end.
Olivia de Havilland won the Best Actress Oscar. The movie got numerous awards including for best costumes. This really does appear to be an authentic period piece (mid 1800’s) including (according to one reviewer) authentic hair styles for back then. Richardson was nominated for Best Actor and Wyler for Best Director. It’s an excellent effort and of the few movies I would recommend as “good.”
Still, I think they left the motives of Morris too ambiguous. The dialogue is a bit lacking in depth. They could have explored the fact that 30,000 pounds a years is an amount that would add to any girl’s attraction and that if some semi-monied (Morris has none) man came a-courtin’ there would have been fewer questions asked.
So there were some missed opportunities there to explore the various shades of love, money, and just plain pragmatic partnership. To their credit, some of this is introduced via Aunt Lavinia who is basically of the mind that even if the fellow is after her money, she’s better off with a little bit of happiness than just dragging on with the dour status quo of the dowdy heiress. And I have to agree with her.
And I thought while watching this, Is that Lt. Tragg? By golly, that is Ray Collins you see there in a small role.