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The Great Gatsby (1949)
Great Gatsby Double Pack = fully restored 1949 version! (also year-2000 version)
This 1949 version was beautifully restored fairly recently but has been hard to find. Here in the US the dvd set is entitled The Great Gatsby Double Pack and costs less than $20. It was thrilling to see the restored version at last! Though this version has its flaws, Alan Ladd creates exactly the Gatsby described by F Scott Fitzgerald. He has that dazzling smile and that intriguing rather opaque personality. This outer persona contrasts with the vulnerable inner Gatsby, again beautifully interpreted by Ladd who seems so natural in the part. None of the other versions have a Gatsby who is so believable. (Toby Stephens perhaps comes closer than the other recent Gatsbys in the year-2000 version also included in this set.)
Unfortunately no version, including this 1949 version, has a completely satisfying Daisy. The only actress I can think of who would have been a perfect fit would be Norma Shearer (assuming a version had been made about 1932-34!) She had a gift for playing glamorous jazz-age debutantes, and she also had the skills to bring out the other sides of Daisy's character.
At the end of the 1949 version a narrator "cleans up" some of the plot elements and re-interprets some of the characters' deeds. It is very odd, obviously connected to the Production Code, and probably a rewrite -- as it does not fit with the original script. (Ditto a brief prologue at the beginning of the film.) Also it is likely Shelley Winters's part was written larger but was left on the cutting room floor. She actually played the part brilliantly, but it was so truncated that only someone familiar with the book and with Shelley Winters's other work would see what the part was meant to be.
So yes, this movie is imperfect but so worth seeing, especially now that it has been restored!
La Belle et la Bête (1946)
Beautiful film - see also Singoalla
La Belle et la Bete is a magical film. I just recently posted the Swedish-French film Singoalla on YouTube, and It occurred to me that people who love this film would probably also love Singoalla. It is based on an old medieval legend of a gypsy who loves a nobleman in a castle. If you don't find it with a regular YouTube search, leave youtube and search on bing.com for: youtube singoalla viveca lindfors. See also my review for Singoalla, posted under its British title "The Wind is My Lover".
Singoalla (1949)
The gypsy and the nobleman and the castle
Singoalla (original title) is a visually stunning film with a haunting score, truly a lost classic. It deserves to have the same reputation as Cocteau's La belle et la bête (1946). It is based on a Swedish legend of a young nobleman in a castle, Erland (Alf Kjellin), who falls in love with a gypsy girl, Singoalla (Viveca Lindfors). Erland is similar to Hamlet in many ways - lonely, unhappy, brooding. Many things go wrong for the romantic star-crossed lovers. The film has wonderful scenes in the countryside, at the castle, and at the gypsy camp; and besides the love story, viewers will also enjoy medieval fight scenes with knives and bows & arrows.
There are three versions: the Swedish (over 100 minutes), the American/British (cut down to 63 minutes), and the French (over 100 minutes, with a different actor playing Erland). Only the Swedish version has been restored and reissued. The three language versions have many titles including: Singoalla (Sweden), Singoalla (France, different actor), Gypsy Fury (USA), The Wind is My Lover (UK), The Mask and the Sword (UK). Each of the three versions was edited differently and even scored slightly differently. The Swedish seems to me the most successful cut, perhaps best representing the director's original artistic intent. But all three versions are unforgettable.
The Swedish DVD can be ordered from Bengans.com (select "outside the EU" if ordering from the USA). The other two versions are on Youtube but hard to find. To watch the first reel of the American/British version, search on Bing.com for "youtube Gypsy Fury viveca lindfors". To watch the entire French version search on Bing.com for "youtube Singoalla viveca lindfors". (Bing.com works better for finding Youtube videos than Youtube's own search or even Google search.)
I first saw Gypsy Fury in the 1950s at age 11 on KTLA in Los Angeles. It came on again when I was 13, and I played hooky to watch it again. It took another 50 years to see it again in any form, and 60 years to see the beautifully restored Swedish version released in December 2013.
See also a publicity booklet on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/SingoallaAkaWindIsMyLoverAkaGypsyFuryBooklet
Gertrud (1964)
Calling for Ingmar Bergman....
Warning - SPOILERS. Stolid, deadly earnest, but still enjoyable Danish film which slowly reveals middle-aged Gertrud's emotional life with dull husband (politician), new lover (composer), former lover (poet), and future loving friend (art critic/writer). The actress's main expression throughout: world-weary. The film's ostensible theme: don't compromise, only love matters. Perhaps its real theme: disillusionment and disappointment matter more. None of these characters have apparently ever found the least humor in themselves or each other. In a flashback we learn that Gertrud leaves her first and arguably deepest love, the poet, because she discovers his drawing of her on which he has written (paraphrase) 'A loving woman gets in the way of work.' If only the poor girl had had had a better sense of humor -- but no, she is shattered -- it's over.
This same plot in the hands of Ingmar Bergman (as he was in the 1950's), with a Swedish cast, would have become a rueful charming comedy a la 'Lesson in Love' or 'Smiles of a Summer Night'. (For all we know, maybe the original stage play by Söderberg =was= more subtle and humorous than Dreyer's movie version.)
In conclusion here is a little question for my fellow armchair critics: if this story was adapted and directed by Ingmar Bergman (the amusing Bergman of the 1950's), how would the film have ended? My thought: hubby (Gunnar Björnstrand of course), would be getting comically drunk on the champagne served just before Gertrud left. She (Eva Dahlbeck of course) would tiptoe back in and return to her locked bedroom. But by some Bergmanesque device she makes sure that hubby gets the bedroom door key (picture Björnstrand's charming goofy self-satisfied look upon receiving it). Upon hubby unlocking the door, Gertrud smiles wrily while opening her arms.