The Barretts of Wimpole Street

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Movie
Original title The Barretts of Wimpole Street
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1934
length 109 minutes
Rod
Director Sidney Franklin
script Ernest Vajda
production Irving Thalberg
for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
music Herbert Stothart
camera William H. Daniels
cut Margaret Booth
occupation

The Barretts of Wimpole Street is a 1934 romantic drama directed by Sidney Franklin about the love affair between the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the poet and playwright Robert Browning .

action

London in 1845: the nearly 40-year-old poet Elizabeth Barrett lives ailingly with her six brothers and two sisters with her widowed father Edward. He has forbidden his daughters to marry because he considers love to be sin, and he rules the household in a tyrannical manner. He only accepts Elizabeth's correspondence with the poet Robert Browning because he believes in a purely professional exchange of ideas between the two. When Robert visits Elizabeth one day, he confesses his love, which Elizabeth rejects.

Three months later, Elizabeth's health has improved noticeably, which she attributes to Roberts' confession of love. On the advice of the doctors, she is supposed to spend the winter in Italy , where Robert happens to be staying, but her father forbids the trip. Robert proposes to her, but Elizabeth refuses because of her poor health. Only when she realizes that her father secretly wants to buy a property in Surrey in order to separate her from Robert and also to stop her sister Henriette's love for Captain Surtees Cook, Elizabeth accepts Roberts' marriage proposal. The following night, Elizabeth and Robert flee to Italy - Elizabeth has her dog, whom Edward is furiously killing, with her. A short time later, the wedding between Elizabeth and Robert takes place.

background

The Barretts of Wimpole Street was based on the play of the same name by Rudolph Besier .

Director Franklin filmed the story again in 1957 under the same title with identical shots and dialogues. This time the actors included John Gielgud and Sam Zimbalist . The film architect for this remake was Alfred Junge .

Awards

At the Academy Awards in 1935 , the film was nominated for both Best Picture and Norma Shearer for Best Actress . The year before, producer Thalberg received the Photoplay Award for the best film .

criticism

Variety called the film "slow" at the beginning, the plot builds up slowly and has difficulties in really arousing the viewer's interest. In the end, however, it captivates the viewer. The film is consistently dominated by long periods of speech.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "The first hour is wandering, planting-the-plot stuff that has some difficulty cementing the interest, but in the final stretch it grips and holds. It's talky throughout - truly an actor's picture, with long speeches, verbose philosophical observations. "Cf. Variety , December 31, 1933.