Not a very satisfactory romanticization of the Brontë sisters and their obscure love life, since very much is wrong, but there are some good points as well. Ida Lupino as Emily makes the film together with Arthur Kennedy as Branwell, and they are convincing enough. Olivia de Havilland is all wrong as Charlotte, and everything she does is wrong – she has never been less convincing. Paul Henreid is all right, although his character is very constructed. It's true that he later married Charlotte, he even made her pregnant, and because of that she died at 38 in childbed only a few years after her sisters and Branwell, so the widowed father had to bury them all, who is completely shadowed away in the film and is given no real character at all.
What saves the film is Sydney Greenstreet as Thackeray, suddenly you are brought to a convincing character and reality of literary London in the early Victorian days, and another very successful detail is the music. Korngold succeeds in giving just the right atmosphere by his soft and subtle music, very much like Bernard Herrmann, and also the other music is well found: There is Beethoven and Schubert, some Lanner, some Chopin and nothing later than of that age, except Korngold himself, of course.
Olivia de Havilland makes a mess of the sisters' engagement in Brussels, and that's the worst part of the film, a completely misapprehended Hollywood conjecture of the worst kind, and Branwell's death scene is also a vulgar exaggeration.
Well, there is so much wrong with this film, that it's a miracle it's worth seeing at all, mainly because of the truly Brontëan conversation, eloquent and witty all the way, especially when Branwell is involved, Ida Lupino's strong and convincing performance (as always), the successful rendering of the environment and the atmosphere, the music, while the worst blunder of the film is the complete obfuscating of Anne Brontë. The film states that two of the Brontë sisters were geniuses. No, they were three, and all the sisters were agreed that Branwell was the number one genius among them.
Compare it with "To Walk Invisible" of last year, the one perfect Brontë biopic, completely true and almost documentary all the way although enough dramatic as well, while this film will land and stay in the shadow.
What saves the film is Sydney Greenstreet as Thackeray, suddenly you are brought to a convincing character and reality of literary London in the early Victorian days, and another very successful detail is the music. Korngold succeeds in giving just the right atmosphere by his soft and subtle music, very much like Bernard Herrmann, and also the other music is well found: There is Beethoven and Schubert, some Lanner, some Chopin and nothing later than of that age, except Korngold himself, of course.
Olivia de Havilland makes a mess of the sisters' engagement in Brussels, and that's the worst part of the film, a completely misapprehended Hollywood conjecture of the worst kind, and Branwell's death scene is also a vulgar exaggeration.
Well, there is so much wrong with this film, that it's a miracle it's worth seeing at all, mainly because of the truly Brontëan conversation, eloquent and witty all the way, especially when Branwell is involved, Ida Lupino's strong and convincing performance (as always), the successful rendering of the environment and the atmosphere, the music, while the worst blunder of the film is the complete obfuscating of Anne Brontë. The film states that two of the Brontë sisters were geniuses. No, they were three, and all the sisters were agreed that Branwell was the number one genius among them.
Compare it with "To Walk Invisible" of last year, the one perfect Brontë biopic, completely true and almost documentary all the way although enough dramatic as well, while this film will land and stay in the shadow.