I had never heard of this film, and it blew me away! This was how they used to do it right! Bette Davis was fantastic, playing against type, and Charles Boyer was great, playing the tormented man he did so well. I guess villainous parts are more fun to play, and they seem to get more notice, like Barbara O'Neil's Oscar nomination for her role as the Duchesse Frances de Praslin. She was very good. The only quibble at all with the cast is the little boy (Richard Nichols) who played the 4 year old Reynald de Praslin, who kept saying lines with French words (mostly Madamoiselle) with a super-syrupy Georgia-like accent. Interesting to see June Lockhart as a teen-ager as Isabelle de Praslin.
I had just a little trouble following something. (Do I have to warn about a spoiler in a 60 year old movie? Well, anyway this would be one.) In films from the Hays Office days, it was left to inference and innuendo whether characters had sex. Sometimes it's hard to tell. Originally I thought that the two stars had had an affair at the villa in Melun. Later in the film, however, it became clear that they had not. I guess that's part of the fun in watching old movies.
A possible anachronism. Mlle. Maillard is shown stuffing a note in an envelope and licking it to seal it. I know that in the 18th century that envelopes were not used, but I'm not sure whether they were in use by 1846, and if they were, whether they were still sealed with wax, rather than adhesive on the envelope itself.
I had just a little trouble following something. (Do I have to warn about a spoiler in a 60 year old movie? Well, anyway this would be one.) In films from the Hays Office days, it was left to inference and innuendo whether characters had sex. Sometimes it's hard to tell. Originally I thought that the two stars had had an affair at the villa in Melun. Later in the film, however, it became clear that they had not. I guess that's part of the fun in watching old movies.
A possible anachronism. Mlle. Maillard is shown stuffing a note in an envelope and licking it to seal it. I know that in the 18th century that envelopes were not used, but I'm not sure whether they were in use by 1846, and if they were, whether they were still sealed with wax, rather than adhesive on the envelope itself.