The novel of Anthony Adverse is 1200 pages; the mere fact that Sheridan Gibney was able to condense it into a screenplay at all is a miracle. Since there's much in the story, I cut the movie slack that it's a little uneven and abrupt at times. It's a pretty famous classic from the 1930s and marked a milestone in the Academy Awards ballots forever after: Gale Sondergaard won the very first Best Supporting Actress Oscar; before 1936, the supporting awards didn't exist!
That being said, Gale's performance is a little one-dimensional. She plays a conniving villainess who plots against the hero since before he's born. Fredric March plays the hero, the title character, but a good chunk of the movie is before he's grown up. Billy Mauch plays the adorable hero as a child. Freddie's love interest is Olivia de Havilland, and the huge supporting cast includes Claude Rains, Edmund Gwenn, Anita Louise, Donald Woods, Louis Hayward, and J. Carrol Naish.
The story is a vast epic, starting from before Fredric March's birth. His mother has an affair, and when she dies giving him life, her cuckolded husband drops the baby at a convent, hoping to never see or hear from him again. Obviously, since Claude Rains and Gale Sondergaard are still prominently featured in the movie, a reunion is anticipated. . .
Anthony Adverse is two and a half hours, but it easily could be remade into a ten-hour miniseries. Anthony's character travels around the world, and years of his life pass in between scenes sometimes. If you like grand epics, like Les Misérables or Lord Jim, you'll want to check this movie out.
That being said, Gale's performance is a little one-dimensional. She plays a conniving villainess who plots against the hero since before he's born. Fredric March plays the hero, the title character, but a good chunk of the movie is before he's grown up. Billy Mauch plays the adorable hero as a child. Freddie's love interest is Olivia de Havilland, and the huge supporting cast includes Claude Rains, Edmund Gwenn, Anita Louise, Donald Woods, Louis Hayward, and J. Carrol Naish.
The story is a vast epic, starting from before Fredric March's birth. His mother has an affair, and when she dies giving him life, her cuckolded husband drops the baby at a convent, hoping to never see or hear from him again. Obviously, since Claude Rains and Gale Sondergaard are still prominently featured in the movie, a reunion is anticipated. . .
Anthony Adverse is two and a half hours, but it easily could be remade into a ten-hour miniseries. Anthony's character travels around the world, and years of his life pass in between scenes sometimes. If you like grand epics, like Les Misérables or Lord Jim, you'll want to check this movie out.