Simply Perfect

Memorable, crazy movie

Crappy film

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

Somewhat saucy romp has a ravishingly beautiful and amber haired Linda Darnell in the lead full of piquant carnality, lavish costumes and settings and a scene stealing George Sanders as Charles II. What it doesn't have is a lively pace and that to some extent is its undoing. Preminger was the wrong director for a piece of entertainment like this that required a florid touch, Michael Curtiz would have been much more at home at the helm.The novel this is based on was a notorious but tremendously successful sensation of its day. That book while certainly not "A Great American Novel" is a highly enjoyable piece of pulp fiction full of sex, murder and double crosses in fancy clothes with a complex, very entertaining heroine at its center who has a good heart but is not overly burdened with morals. Unfortunately since they tried to film it in the forties when the Production Code was in full force the more salacious plot points had to be excised. What made it to the screen has its moments but shows the heavy hand of censors most evident in the abrupt ending but scattered throughout the movie. Still a fun romp with Linda giving a spirited performance and for those who haven't read the book a somewhat racy tone.A troubled production from the beginning what with censorship problems, a recast leading lady, Linda Darnell stepped in after production had started when Peggy Cummings didn't work out and Lana Turner couldn't be borrowed from MGM and a martinet in the director's chair. There are still a few amusing stories connected to the backstage upheaval that went on. Linda Darnell had worked with Preminger before on Fallen Angel and it had been rough going but she truly came to loathe him during production of Amber. Later while filming A Letter to Three Wives Joseph Mankiewicz needed her to throw a look of disgust at a picture unseen by the audience, to achieve that look he slipped a picture of Preminger into the frame without her knowledge, he got his look. A small sampling of Preminger's directorial style: after acting out a scene for Linda and Cornel Wilde he screamed at them as they tried to do as he had instructed "Don't do it like I did it! Do it like I meant it!"One peripheral story: when Ava Gardner was briefly married to Artie Shaw he flew into a rage and berated her when he caught her reading Forever Amber saying it was trash and she should be focusing her attention on things that would enrich her mind, he was that kind of husband. They divorced shortly after and within the year he had married Kathleen Winsor...the author of Forever Amber!

This is a period epic, which is comparable in many ways to "Gone With the Wind", and might even, in other circumstances, have been the greater film. Unfortunately a number of factors contributed to the final film showing too many minor flaws for this, and the principal reason for re-watching it today is probably the magnificent performance by George Sanders who perfectly depicts the amoral cynicism and jaded sensuality that is correctly or incorrectly always associated with the seventeenth century British monarch King Charles the Second. Although not nominated, this was certainly an Oscar worthy role.The film-script is based on the lengthy, florid, and sometimes almost turgid, 1,000 page novel by Kathleen Windsor - a book that had been roundly condemned by the Catholic Church. Twentieth Century Fox's decision to film it was highly controversial. This led to a long running battle with zealots from the Catholic League of Decency which ultimately emasculated the film to the point where it became no more than marginally commercially viable and where the final product was unable to stand the test of time in the way that many other great films from this era have done. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to have the chance of seeing how a re-mastered DVD version would fare if released today, and overall I am firmly of the opinion that this film would warrant such treatment. Unfortunately it appears that the first ending which was more in keeping with the original book, but was changed under pressure from the Church, may now be lost. (Twentieth Century Fox accepted pressure to create the revised ending, and to introduce a number of other changes designed to stress the immorality inherent in the story, just two weeks after the film was first released). -SPOILER AHEAD - This new ending shows Amber's out of wedlock son being surrendered to his father who is about to sail back to America to resume running the Plantation he owns there, whilst a heartbroken Amber looks on. However Fox seem to have deliberately tweaked the tail of the Church even when making the change. The dialogue now ambiguously refers to how much better it will be for this young boy to be brought up in America learning to operate a slave plantation, rather than to stay in England as part of the "immoral" seventeenth century London Society! The acting was very good but (apart from George Sanders) not superb. Maureen O'Hara, who was considered for the part of Amber, might have been more successful in adding some of the fire which was so badly needed in Amber's passionate but unrequited love affair, as well perhaps as in her other more career orientated liaisons.The original lighting and cinematography are not easily assessed by watching surviving home video recordings of this film, but those who saw it in the cinema largely agree that long sequences (particularly in the early part) were under-lit. Presumably a re-mastered DVD release could correct this problem. The three strip Technicolor used to create this film was fully satisfactory The costumes have been criticised as being not totally authentic, but except for those viewers who are students of costume, they were probably perfectly adequate. And if you believe that period costumes should always be accurate, remember the really authentic costumes used in the film "The Wicked Lady" (1945) were rejected by U.S. censors as showing excessive décolletage so that many scenes had to be re-filmed for the American release.The presentation of this story is hard to fault. The London scenario and the sequences involving both the Plague and the Great Fire of London were created excellently. The film also featured a great score which was nominated for an Oscar.Conclusion.For me the film rather dragged, it was slow and a little ponderous. Originally this would have best been corrected by shortening a number of overlong scenes, so enabling some of the many others from the book which were not filmed to have been incorporated; but today a few judicious cuts to shorten the running time a little would serve much the same purpose. Unfortunately (and less easily corrected) watching this film today gives the impression that its Director, Otto Preminger, was continuously and nervously looking over his shoulder to assess what openings every sequence he filmed would provide for the Church to attack. Had he been able to concentrate more completely on how these scenes would be received by a modern audience unfamiliar with the atmosphere of the seventeenth century Royal Court he was depicting, he might have been able to create a memorable and great film despite the fact that the original book could never have been described in these terms

This movie has always been a favorite of mine, BUT I hadn't seen it in over 20 years... so that should say something about my maturity level. Recently, I viewed it two different times. Each time I got something new from it, but it was still hard to follow and boring.My main objective here is in trying to find out where they got the beautiful dogs that King Charles had. They are King Charles Spaniels... as they are named after the king. However, for 1947 I am amazed at how beautiful these dogs looked. Truthfully, these dogs were the highlight of my purpose for viewing this movie. Any comments about the background of these dogs would be appreciated.

Back in the days when the Roman Catholic censorship body, the Legion of Decency, had an unwarranted share of influence over the major Hollywood studios and their product, Darryl F. Zanuck, head of production at 20th-Century Fox, found himself embroiled in plenty of hot water with the L. of D. militia over his plans to film Kathleen Winsor's wildly popular succes du scandale "Forever Amber." We can be grateful he braved the fulminations of the clerics and their cohorts and lavished class "A" production values on this entertaining spectacle. Of course the more salacious aspects of Miss Winsor's story are toned down and softened, but there's a rather bitterly astringent tone to the proceedings, nevertheless.The cast performs ably under the legendarily tyrranical Otto Preminger, whose direction of some sequences does seem a bit perfunctory. Linda Darnell is gorgeously gowned and lovingly photographed in three-strip Technicolor by Leon Shamroy, at his professional best. (I will agree that some scenes, especially at the beginning, seem a bit underlit, possibly due to an inferior VHS video transfer...I have never seen this on a big screen.) Miss Darnell holds her own against the likes of George Sanders, giving one of his wittiest performances as King Charles II, and her line readings, spoken in that delicious speaking voice of hers, ring true for the most part. The always reliable Richard Haydn, as the loathsome Earl of Radcliffe, convinces us that his grisly fate is well-deserved. And even the usually laconic Cornel Wilde convinces as a suitable object of Amber's steadfastly unrequited passion.Best of all David Raksin's score achieves near-operatic grandeur, lending a sensual sweep that underscores one of Twentieth's really memorable costumers. Alfred Newman, head of Twentieth's music department, masterfully conducted Raksin's music, back in the days when the major studios employed full-time orchestras of musicians whose talents rivalled the players of the best symphony orchestras of the day and, perhaps, even now. Of course the video's audio track doesn't do the musical score the justice it deserves and it may be that in the late Forties when this was made, only the Warner Brothers studio sound technicians achieved full sonority on the optical tracks on which were recorded the scores of Korngold and Steiner and the other masters who worked at that rival studio.