A woman's heart never forgets
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | A woman's heart never forgets |
| Original title | Lydia |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1941 |
| length | 104 (88) minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Julien Duvivier |
| script |
Ben Hecht Samuel Hoffenstein based on Julien Duvivier and Leslie Bush-Fekete's story Un Carnet de Bal |
| production |
Alexander Korda Production Company : United Artists |
| music | Miklós Rózsa |
| camera | Lee Garmes |
| cut | William Hornbeck |
| occupation | |
| |
A woman's heart never forgets (original title Lydia ) is an American drama from 1941 directed by Julien Duvivier , which goes back to his story Un Carnet de Bal , written together with Leslie Bus-Fekete . Duvivier filmed the material as early as 1937 in France under the same title, the German title Game of Memory .
The leading roles are cast with Merle Oberon , Alan Marshal , Joseph Cotten as well as Hans Yaray and George Reeves .
action
When Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick hears the name Lydia MacMillan on the radio, he stands up and looks at the picture of a beautiful young woman. The radio broadcast is a tribute to Lydia; she is honored for her commitment to blind and orphaned children. The governor of New York says the heart of a great woman created this house for children. Its foundations are human love and goodness. Michael goes straight to Lydia's office to congratulate her. However, she refuses, he shouldn't talk nonsense, she has already been honored enough. No, she never married, she replies to his question, that there were too many wishes and too few admirers. Fitzpatrick teases her that he has known about four. Lydia counts on her fingers Bob, Richard, Frank ... and "what about me?" Adds Michael. Lydia has to laugh. Both arrange to meet on Friday to talk about old times. When Lydia arrives at Michael’s Friday, he has a surprise for her: she faces her old friends Bob Willard and Frank Andre. Bob is now a manager at a nightclub and Andre, a blind concert pianist, still has words for her as poetic as he did when they were young. The three men tell Lydia that over the past 40 years she has been moved by the thought why they are not married to her. The reason was another man, says Lydia. So then Richard, state the three gentlemen, which Lydia affirms. She wants to know why he is not there and Michael replies that he will still come. Michael remembers June 7, 1898: Lydia thinks she was 18 years old at the time, a bit silly, but strikingly pretty to look at, which the gentlemen unanimously confirm.
Michael is standing at the foot of the stairs as the young, charming Lydia in a ball gown floats down. His father is a butler in the house of Lydia's grandmother Sarah MacMillan, a very energetic old lady. Fitzpatrick introduces Sarah MacMillan to his son, who has just finished his medical training. Since he is writing down a remedy for the somewhat hypochondriac old lady, he has a stone in her right away, she introduces him to her granddaughter as a new family doctor. Michael tells Lydia that back then it was love at first sight for him. The memories of the ballroom are different among those involved. Lydia remembers that when Bob Willard, “her Prince Charming” asked her to waltz, it was like dancing on a cloud. Michael contradicts Lydia and Bob that it was just an ordinary little ballroom. Lydia remembers that Bob recited Byron and Shelley , which puzzles Michael. The memory of the next day is also different. After a rugby game , Bob is invited to Lydia's grandmother's house, but she complements the young man and forbids her granddaughter to have any further contact with him. She lets Lydia know that tomorrow she will send her to her cousin's in Virginia . Lydia turns to Michael for help. She tells him that she wants to run away with Bob tonight. However, Michael reacts completely differently than she expected, he wants to tell her grandmother everything, but then can't bring himself to do it. The marriage does not take place, nevertheless both go to a hotel and pretend to be married. Lydia is so disappointed with the circumstances that she tells Bob that she is happy that the marriage did not take place. Then she storms off and drives back to Boston .
When Michael is called up, Lydia spends his last evening with him in an artist's bar. He confesses his love to her and she says she knows he loves her and that he should come back. You will wait for him. When saying goodbye at the port, Lydia met the man for the third time, who called her “beauty in tears” for a reason. Michael asks Lydia if that was the moment when she fell in love with Richard. However, she says no, her life was changed by someone named Johnny. Johnny was a little blind boy and he changed her life more than anyone else. Lydia accompanied Johnny to his slum quarters and was so shocked that she founded a house for blind children. There Frank Andre, a blind pianist , introduced himself to her . He said that music is particularly important for the blind. When Michael came back, she introduced him to Frank Andre. Shortly afterwards she and Michael attended a ball. On the way back there was a race through the snow between hers and Michael's carriage and that of Richard Mason, the man she had met three times. Lydia fell in love. Lydia tells her friends that they loved an illusion rather than her. She and Richard left Boston and went to the wasteland of Macmillanport. She tells the friends how it was back then and how great her love for Richard was. Richard had promised her that he would never leave her and repeated how happy he was with her. He read to Lydia from Lalla Rookh by Thomas Moore . One morning he said goodbye to her and her home, which they called “petrels nest”, in a very special way. Lydia tells the friends that she prayed for Richard that stormy night and waited all night. It was the longest night of her life. When her ship, baptized "Lalla Rookh", returned at dawn, old Ned had given her a letter from Richard. He was gone. He wrote to her that there was another woman in his life who had a right to him. He had enclosed his mother's wedding ring with the letter and asked her to wait for him, it would take a while, but he would come back. “Poor Lydia”, the friends agree and want to know if she has ever heard from Richard again. Lydia tells them that this only happened after many months and tells the friends that they helped her a lot back then.
After a concert that Frank had given only for Lydia, she received a letter from Richard with three rings and a confession of his great love for her. It won't be long now, she should wait for him at the little church on New Year's Eve. He'll come there. Then they would get married. On New Year's Eve, she told her granny about it and let her know that she would stand by him forever because she loved him. Richard did not come that night, it was his last sign of life. In the spring Michael Lydia again affirmed his love and told her that he wanted to marry her. She should not let this man spoil her life, who will probably never contact her again. In fact, Lydia and Michael were planning their wedding. Her grandmother was happy about it. When she wanted to toast with the young couple, however, she collapsed dead. She then went back to Macmillanport to the little house where she was so happy with Richard. The memories of the happy time there would have hurt her very much. After a few months Michael wanted to bring her back. At that time she had to tell him that she could not become his wife, that she would have to pay for her debt for a lifetime. Her love for Richard would always stand between them, she would never get away from him.
Yes, that's how it was back then, for many, many years and an illusion, says Lydia when the door opens and Richard Mason enters. He says he has received an invitation and wants to know from Michael what he wants from him. Then he looks around and asks Michael to introduce him to those present. When Lydia gets up and speaks to him, his face remains unmoved, he doesn't know her, he replies in response to her question, he doesn't know anyone here. The three friends can't believe it, Michael says maybe he really didn't know Lydia. With tears in her eyes, Lydia realizes that he has actually forgotten her, which Michael finds incomprehensible. Lydia, however, replies: "He's just a man, a woman's heart never forgets."
Production and Background
The film was shot in the General Service and Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood , USA . For the film, producer Alexander Korda had a budget of one million dollars.
The film premiered on September 18, 1941 in New York . The general theatrical release in the United States was on September 25, 1941. The film opened in the Federal Republic of Germany on February 24, 1950, in Austria on February 17, 1950. On August 25, 1962, A Woman's Heart Never Forgets was shown for the first time on the ARD television program .
In Austria - partly also in the Federal Republic of Germany - the film was shown under the title Ein Frauenherz .
For Edna May Oliver and John Halliday, this film was their last work on the screen. Oliver died a year after the film was released, while Halliday retired to Hawaii. For Joseph Cotten, however, whose second film role after his role in Citizen Kane , the start of a promising film career began. Merle Oberon had hoped her decade-long role would earn her approval from the criticism. For the scenes as an older woman, she was made up and dressed for almost three hours every day. However, the initial reaction from the critics was rather negative. The main criticism was that her facial skin looked like a mask but not like human skin. Merle Oberon and Alexander Korda were married to each other at the time.
For the Viennese theater actor Hans Jaray , who called himself Yaray here , this was the first Hollywood film since his emigration to the USA.
Miklós Rózsa, who received his second Oscar nomination (first for The Thief of Baghdad ) for his music for this film , was discovered by Korda.
DVD
A Woman's Heart Never Forgets was released on June 13, 2006 on DVD, published by Phoenix Neue Medien GmbH.
Reviews
The lexicon of international films said that it was a “romantic female drama with charm and formal refinement” and came to the conclusion: “An adequate American remake that Duvivier of his own hit film Game of Memory (France 1937) Made. " Bosley Crowther of the New York Times found in a September 19, 1941 article that Alexander Korda's Lydia was " just another of those tearful, sentimental films that shed light on a woman's past. It becomes a bit more digestible because Merle Oberon plays this woman, but overall the film is still too sticky and with too much pathos. "Crowther referred to the French version of the film Carnet du Bal ," which was simply more beautiful and deep would have offered touching images. Lydia, on the other hand, is just a jumble of nostalgia, a blizzard of withered rose petals. " Variety magazine confirmed to Merle Oberon in its December 31, 1940 issue that she was" using her outstanding role to achieve excellent results. The make-up is particularly successful and has to make believable over a period of many years. "When the film was shown in the cinema again 28 years after its premiere, the Protestant film observer came to the following assessment:" This somewhat dusty film [[ …] Tries (also externally through the episodic form of the narrative) to tie in with the famous forerunner ' Game of Memory ' - without reaching it. Nevertheless, this subtly filmed soul drama is better than much that came afterwards, such as, for example, most recently ' With devilish greetings '. "
Awards
Miklós Rózsa was nominated with his music for A Woman's Heart Never Forgets at the Academy Awards in 1942 in the category “Best Score in a Drama” , but was defeated by Bernard Herrmann with his music composed for the film The Devil and Daniel Webster .
Web links
- A woman's heart never forgets in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Lydia at TCM - Turner Classic Movies
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ein Frauenherz Filming locations at IMDb.de. Accessed on January 14, 2013
- ↑ a b c Lydia at TCM - Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved January 14, 2013.
- ↑ A woman's heart film title at IMDb.de. Retrieved January 14, 2013.
- ↑ A woman's heart never forgets at buch.ch. Retrieved January 14, 2013.
- ↑ A woman's heart never forgets. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film Service , accessed January 14, 2013 .
- ^ Lydia Bosley Crowther, The New York Times (English text). Retrieved January 14, 2013.
- ↑ Lydia ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Variety.com (English text). Retrieved January 14, 2013.
- ↑ Evangelical Press Association, Munich, Review No. 208/1969.
