Crappy film

Absolutely the worst movie.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Copyright 15 July 1936 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Strand, 26 August 1936. U.K. release: September 1936. Australian release: 18 November 1936. Sydney opening at The State (ran 4 weeks). Melbourne opening at The Regent: 1 January 1937. Australian length: 12,573 feet. U.S. length: 12,250 feet. 15 reels. 136 minutes.SYNOPSIS: An adventurer sweeps through 18th century France, Italy, Scotland, Cuba and America and back, winning fame, fortune — and finally girl.NOTES: Gale Sondergaard won the year's prestigious Hollywood award for Supporting Actress (defeating Beulah Bondi in The Gorgeous Hussy, Alice Brady in My Man Godfrey, Bonita Granville in These Three, and Maria Ouspenskaya in Dodsworth).Tony Gaudio carried off the Cinematography award (defeating Victor Milner's The General Died At Dawn, and George Folsey's The Gorgeous Hussy).Ralph Dawson won the award for Film Editing (overcoming a particularly strong field: Edward Curtiss for Come And Get It; William S. Gray for The Great Ziegfeld; Barbara McLean for Lloyds of London; Conrad A. Nervig for A Tale of Two Cities; and Otto Meyer for Theodora Goes Wild).Korngold and Forbstein won the award for Best Music Score (defeating Max Steiner who was nominated twice — for The Charge of the Light Brigade and The Garden of Allah; Werner Janssen — The General Died At Dawn; and Nathaniel Shilkret for Winterset).Anthony Adverse was also nominated for Best Picture (won by The Great Ziegfeld); Assistant Director (won by Jack Sullivan for The Charge of the Light Brigade); and Art Direction (Anton Grot lost to Richard Day's Dodsworth).Despite a harsh review in the influential New York Times, the movie was voted 8th in The Film Daily annual poll of U.S. film critics.COMMENT: From its opening shot of a team of horses being ridden into the camera, this is a film that grips the attention. The story is told at a cracking pace and it is directed with tremendous sweep and vigor. The pace never lets up and the players make the characters so interesting, the sets are so attractive, the costumes so colorful and Korngold's Oscar-winning music score so grand (in every sense of the word), one is genuinely sorry to see the film finish. True, outrageous liberties are taken with coincidence and some of the events are downright incredible with sub-titles glossing over some particularly awkward continuity gaps, but frankly who cares?The hero lives up to his invented name. His whole life is a series of adversities taking him from one far-flung port to another. Fredric March makes a late entrance, but he more than makes up for the delay by his powerful portrayal. Although one does not usually picture him as a romantic hero, he is in fact perfectly cast. Despite the platitudes and occasional sermonizing of the dialogue, he makes the central character a figure of tremendous strength and sympathy.A brilliant roster of support players lend their weight to the sweep and vigor of the film's many arresting incidents. Among the most memorable: Luis Alberni giving his greatest performance ever in one of the film's most imaginative sketches, the story of the servant overwhelmed to a state of madness by sudden wealth; Claude Rains, a dancing aristocrat, one of the most rounded characters in the film, enmeshed by his momentary soft-heartedness into plotting with Gale Sondergaard, here giving a characteristic portrayal of avaricious, ruthless deception and deceit which won her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (this was the first time the Oscar was given in this category — and it was her first film too!); George E. Stone, "the best servant I ever had", gives a most uncharacteristic and indeed unrecognizable yet brilliantly effective portrait of Rains' evil accomplice, Sancho; J. Carroll Naish as the French major who arrests Adverse; Rollo Lloyd, an unforgettably Machiavellian study of Napoleon; Anita Louise, the ill-fated Maria; Louis Hayward, the dashing lover; Edmund Gwenn, the canny proprietor of Casa da Bonnyfeather; Akim Tamiroff, the sybaritic Carlo Cibo; Steffi Duna, perhaps overdoing the evil facial contortions as a ruthless native girl; Addison Richards in a most uncharacteristic role and almost unrecognizable at first as a slave trader. William Ricciardi has a splendid cameo as the talkative coachman who converses with Adverse in front of a speeding process screen. Ralph Morgan's part is small and Donald Woods does not have much to do either (fortunately).Credits are remarkable. The film editing, which deservedly won an Academy Award for Ralph Dawson, is both sharp and smooth. The superbly atmospheric photography gained an Academy Award for Tony Gaudio. The sets are some of the most visually impressive ever seen. The costumes, Korngold's symphonic score, the snatches of opera, the sets bustling with extras, the tremendous style with which it has all been directed, the deft compositions and adroit camera movements forming images that linger in the mind — absolutely no expense has been spared. One's only complaint is that Olivia De Havilland seems a bit old for the Angela of the earlier part of the film — but she does make a charming Mademoiselle George (no doubt her singing voice is dubbed, but it's by no means obvious)!

Everybody expected MGM to release big epic costume dramas, but Warner Brothers, the studio of Bogart, Cagney and EGR? Indeed, the studio who produced "The Petrified Forest" and "Bullets or Ballots" in 1936 also gave movie goers "The Charge of the Light Brigade", " The Story of Louis Pasteur" and a drama with Kay Francis playing Florence Nightingale. Their truly big film was this glorious costume drama that is as luscious looking as any of the big films that both Thalberg and Selznick were producing over at MGM.Almost a Dickens theme, this epic costume drama takes its young hero from being dropped off as a baby at an orphan asylum to Cuba and Africa, working as a slave trader, and finally into the courts of Napoleon. Fredric March and Olivia de Havilland enter the scene 40 minutes into this nearly 2 1/2 film after a long prologue where Anthony's birth is explored as the son born to lovers Anita Louise and Louis Hayward and left to die after Louise's brutish husband, Claude Rains, kills Hayward. Later on, the 10 year old Anthony is made an apprentice in the household of his maternal grandfather and his birth circumstances become a scheme of intrigue involving the deliciously malevolent housekeeper Gale Sondergaard. Telling more would spoil the surprises and give away too many important details. What can be said is that other than a few slow patches (mostly the African scenes), this is a fascinating saga that remind me if the novels by modern epic author John Jakes. This swept the Academy Awards with three technical Oscars and a well deserved Supporting performance for Miss Sondergaard. The cat-like Faith is a n opportunist of the most calculating kind, wisely teamed with the older Rains who gets a laugh in much like the invisible man. March and De Havilland are boring in comparison to these two.Others who offer interesting characterizations include Henry O'Neill, Edmund Gwenn and Eily Malton. Billy Mauch is great as the 10 year old Anthony. Look quickly for Clara Blandick. It might be tempting to fast-forward through the middle section in Africa, but that is important to the story to explain Adverse's genesis as a character.

Fredric March was quite a versatile actor, comedy, screwball comedy, epic drama, courtroom drama, period drama, great literature. The story is reminiscent of Les Miserables, the movie version in which he also played the lead role. I find it surprising that this film has not been remade, considering the countless renditions of Les Miserables there have been over the years. It is a sordid tale for the young, so would not recommend for children. The characters could use a bit more depth, but at 2 hours and 20 minutes, there is still a lot of ground to cover, in a 1300 page novel. It would be nice to see what was cut that did not make the final version.

This jumbo story of a man's ups and downs in Napoleonic Europe -- and Cuba and Africa -- appeared as a novel in the depths of the Great Depression, when people must have had a lot of time to read. I doubt that it's much read today because its appeal is for such a limited audience. The film adapted from it is more than two hours long and pretty dull.It was directed by a seasoned pro but you wouldn't know it. The casting and editing are clumsy, and everyone except Anthony Adverse (Frederick March) overacts. You expect a bit of ham from performers like J. Carrol Naish but not from the delicate and beautiful Olivia De Havilland. (Wardrobe has at least given her some daring necklines, which didn't happen often.) The plot? An illegitimate boy starts out with nothing, grows up, gains power and wealth, realizes it doesn't mean much, and takes off with his son to start a new life in a New World.Casting got the two leads right. March and De Havilland look right for their parts. But the rest of the cast -- well. As is usual in these epics, there are good people and bad people. Aside from a few harmless comics. You know how you can tell the good from the bad here? The good look good; the bad look ugly. Take the greedy housekeeper in the millionaire's estate, Gail Sondergaard. Her every smile is an evil sneer. Those teeth could gnaw their way through an anchor chain in no time. She does her best to cheat March out of his inheritance and, failing that, she marries a Spanish Count by means of extortion.A bonus point for the score. When you get tired of watching Frederick March wrestling with his conscience, or the supporting players conniving to screw up his life, you can listen to Eric Wolfgang Korngold's magnificent music.