This is a genuinely successful adaptation of a Pushkin story, which works hard to create the atmosphere of the novella and generate an atmosphere of suspense and otherworldly goings on. Not the sort of fantasy we accept nowadays based on comic book escapism, but the sort that most cultures have acknowledged since time immemorial. The spiritual, the magical, the ghostly, the morality story.
This sort of film is simply never made nowadays (2023) and I'm not sure it could be. The art direction seems rooted in a sort of faded reality, early scenes with peasant / gypsy singers may wel have used the real thing. The actors are mostly English stock actors of the movies of the time, including a couple of wonderful character actors such as Athene Seyler and Miles Mathieson, but the leads, Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans and Yvonne Mitchell in particular are outstanding (all of them had long and distinguished careers).
Evans is extraordinary in a full blown 'stage' performance which nonetheless works brilliantly on film. Full of ticks and movements, specific to the character, her class, her age, her experience and her psyche. A sort of Miss Havisham writ larger and with more layers. Where Miss H is just the other side of madness, the Countess seems to be clearly this side but struggling at times to hold on.
It is played in a mannered style that needs to be accepted quickly, it is melodrama, but after ting and real nonetheless. There's a menace at play which we feel almost immediately and throughout. Leslie Howard's son.l Ronald is an effective leading man, unable to shake memories of his father just because of his likeness. Though never a star or indeed, able to evince the heights of talent that his celebrated father did, his career lasted until he stepped away in his fifties.
The film is well paced and the short scenes may make it easier for a modern audience to engage with.
It's lack of Polish in various technical areas (when compared with the greatest of American movies of the period) May work in its favour, giving it a sort of scratchy reality and stopping its period setting seem like a 'Ruritanian style operetta gone rogue'.
Definitely an unfairly neglected gem, with an outstanding performance by Dame Edith, which was recognised as such at the time by the New York Film Critics.
Highly recommended to anyone with an appetite for interesting stories wel told takt err on the mystical and perhaps melodramatic with a touch of Grand Guignol!
This sort of film is simply never made nowadays (2023) and I'm not sure it could be. The art direction seems rooted in a sort of faded reality, early scenes with peasant / gypsy singers may wel have used the real thing. The actors are mostly English stock actors of the movies of the time, including a couple of wonderful character actors such as Athene Seyler and Miles Mathieson, but the leads, Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans and Yvonne Mitchell in particular are outstanding (all of them had long and distinguished careers).
Evans is extraordinary in a full blown 'stage' performance which nonetheless works brilliantly on film. Full of ticks and movements, specific to the character, her class, her age, her experience and her psyche. A sort of Miss Havisham writ larger and with more layers. Where Miss H is just the other side of madness, the Countess seems to be clearly this side but struggling at times to hold on.
It is played in a mannered style that needs to be accepted quickly, it is melodrama, but after ting and real nonetheless. There's a menace at play which we feel almost immediately and throughout. Leslie Howard's son.l Ronald is an effective leading man, unable to shake memories of his father just because of his likeness. Though never a star or indeed, able to evince the heights of talent that his celebrated father did, his career lasted until he stepped away in his fifties.
The film is well paced and the short scenes may make it easier for a modern audience to engage with.
It's lack of Polish in various technical areas (when compared with the greatest of American movies of the period) May work in its favour, giving it a sort of scratchy reality and stopping its period setting seem like a 'Ruritanian style operetta gone rogue'.
Definitely an unfairly neglected gem, with an outstanding performance by Dame Edith, which was recognised as such at the time by the New York Film Critics.
Highly recommended to anyone with an appetite for interesting stories wel told takt err on the mystical and perhaps melodramatic with a touch of Grand Guignol!