Sunday, September 25, 2016

1947 - FOREVER AMBER, some sort of English soap opera

A trashy novel about an English slut dressed up with lots of 20th Century Fox production money and filmed in 1940's technicolor.  


Clearly the idea was to do a version of Gone With The Wind set in 17th century England.  The audience is supposed to be interested in the social climbing adventures of one Amber St. Clair a woman who sleeps her way up to social status and power.  However since this was filmed in the 1940's all that sex stuff was pretty much implied

What you get in this picture is American actress Linda Darnell playing an English woman.  Darnell doesn't even attempt an accent.  Come to think of it the cast, a mixture of British and American actors and the director Otto Preminger didn't seem to sweat all of that dialect stuff.


This is the kind of film where the men run around in those goofy 17th century wigs and looking like a bunch of fops as they say.  The women heave their bosoms and Amber gets her comeuppance for being a naughty girl.  The whole thing is watchable only for the sets and a decent music score from David Raskin.

138 minutes, written by Philip Dunne and Ring Lardner Jr.

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