Peer Gynt (1941)
7/10
The Earliest Charlton Heston
5 August 2018
Yep, the same Charlton Heston who played heroic parts later, most notably, he parted the Red Sea as Moses in The Ten Commandments (with the help of Cecil B. DeMille), won the Chariot race as Ben Hur, and even painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling as Michelangelo (!!!!) in The Agony and the Ecstasy. (In which Pope Julius II is played by Rex Harrison who didn't get along with Heston and avoided him when they were in a version of The Prince and the Pauper later on. (Neither of them were easy to get along with!)

It may be argued that the part of Ibsen's Peer Gynt is quite anti-heroic throughout, as his character is that of a ne'er-do-well although he is already good-looking enough for his age.

One would expect that the all-important musical background of this semi-silent film would be by Edvard Grieg who wrote the most familiar incidental music for Ibsen's play but several other composers are represented including Ravel (Mother Goose Suite) and Kodaly's Hary Janos (A sort of Hungarian Baron Munchausen!)

Again, it may be argued that the musical selections tend to stress the unreal fairy tale aspects, perhaps mirroring Peer's fickleness in regard to his relations with young women.
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