There are a couple of gorgeous scenes in this film. Valjean's awakening is an absolutely transcendent moment. But overall, everything is way too rushed and compressed for my taste. The story rarely has any opportunity to breathe. If this version has anything going for it, it's Fredric March's exceptionally intelligent performance as Jean Valjean.
One huge turnoff for me is something that I frequently encounter whenever I watch period flicks from the 1930s and 40s. Apart from Fredric March, the actors all deliver their lines in a highly stylized accent which completely takes me out of the story. I didn't buy any of them as 19th century French people..... there wasn't a moment when I wasn't aware that I was watching a Hollywood production from 1935. Charles Laughton has this posh voice which is so completely wrong for a character like Javert, for a character with the kind of upbringing that he's had. The guy is supposed to have been born in a jail and raised by gypsies, and Laughton talks like someone in a Noel Coward play. However, he is so present emotionally that I can overlook it to a certain extent. The kid who plays young Cosette is godawful. She is so earnest and fakey and sounds like she came from somewhere in Nebraska.
One huge turnoff for me is something that I frequently encounter whenever I watch period flicks from the 1930s and 40s. Apart from Fredric March, the actors all deliver their lines in a highly stylized accent which completely takes me out of the story. I didn't buy any of them as 19th century French people..... there wasn't a moment when I wasn't aware that I was watching a Hollywood production from 1935. Charles Laughton has this posh voice which is so completely wrong for a character like Javert, for a character with the kind of upbringing that he's had. The guy is supposed to have been born in a jail and raised by gypsies, and Laughton talks like someone in a Noel Coward play. However, he is so present emotionally that I can overlook it to a certain extent. The kid who plays young Cosette is godawful. She is so earnest and fakey and sounds like she came from somewhere in Nebraska.