The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944)

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Movie
Original title The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1944
length 87, 90, 107 minutes
Rod
Director Rowland V. Lee
script Howard Estabrook
production Benedict Bogeaus ,
Rowland V. Lee
for United Artists
music Dimitri Tiomkin
camera John W. Boyle ,
John J. Mescall
cut Harvey Manger
occupation

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is an American film drama directed by Rowland V. Lee from 1944. Lynn Bari , Akim Tamiroff and Francis Lederer can be seen in the leading roles, with Alla Nazimova , Louis Calhern and Donald Woods in leading roles .

The by Howard Estabrook and Herman Weissman adaptation of the play on which the screenplay is based, goes back to Thornton Wilder the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey , which was published in New York in the 1927th

The film received an Oscar nomination in the category "Best Film Music".

action

The year 1774 was when a rickety suspension bridge collapsed in Peru, making it possible to cross the gorge to get to the chapel of San Luis Rey. The collapse killed five people. The chapel minister, Brother Juniper, is deeply affected by the disaster and wants to find out why such a fate befell these five people.

In the course of his investigation, Brother Juniper visits Uncle Pio, a theater entrepreneur who hits the pulse of the people with his performances. When Juniper asks Pio about the popular Peruvian actress Micaela Villegas, Pio enthuses about what it was like when he first saw her on the streets of Lima. Juniper learns that Micaela, who is with the adventurous Manuel, is struggling with hating his twin brother Esteban because he feels left out. Manuel asked Micaela to wait for him when he decided to sail to Spain. He, Pio, then took care of Micaela and taught her drama and dance. Under his leadership she quickly rose to the star of his theater. After Don Andre, the viceroy, saw her in a performance, he was enthusiastic about Micaela and invited her to his palace. On the night of the invitation, however, Manuel returned from his voyage and Micaela had left the audience and preferred to spend the night with Manuel. The latter reacted jealously and warned Micaela against the viceroy and the nobles in general. The already existing tensions between the brothers intensified when Manuel discovered that Esteban had withheld Micaela's letters to him. When Esteban's apology was not accepted by Manuel, he tried to hang himself. Fortunately, Manuel found him in time and then devotedly looked after his brother. When Esteban was fine again, the unsteady Manuel set off on another trip around the world. Micaela then bowed to another invitation from the viceroy. However, the Marquesa Doña Maria, who also lives in the palace, decided to destroy Micaela, as she had intended the viceroy for her daughter. She then proceeded very ingeniously. When the nobles treated Micaela with condescension, she stood by her and thus won the young woman's trust. The viceroy then campaigned offensively for Micaela.

Pio finishes his remarks and Juniper goes to the abbess to learn more about the Marquesa from her. The abbess tells him that the Marquisa's daughter, to avoid her mother's plans, fled to Spain and married a young nobleman there. The lonely Marquesa then asked her for help, whereupon she found the orphan Pepita, a gentle young girl, who, however, was not treated well by her.

Back at Pio's, Juniper learns that the Viceroy Micaela has credibly assured that his interest in her is serious. However, Esteban presented Micaela with a letter from which it emerged that the Marquesa and other nobles had conspired against her. Micaela then asked him, Pio, for advice, whereupon he composed a song for her that she performed at an event in the palace. The offensive text about an old crow caused great annoyance. The viceroy was furious and ordered Micaela to apologize to the Marquesa in black penitential clothing. This public humiliation hurt Micaela very much, but she complied with the request. The Marquesa had recognized the generosity of this gesture and thanked her. That night Manuel returned, who had meanwhile taken it to the captain and asked Micaela to go with him. As a result, there was a confrontation between the viceroy and Manuel, which ended with his arrest. She then asked him, Pio, to help her get Manuel out of prison, which they did. While Micaela and the viceroy were on their way to San Luis Rey, the viceroy learned of the escape and, on Pio's advice, signed a pardon to ensure that Manuel would not become a martyr . He himself then brought the pardon to Manuel, who was hiding behind the rocks at the bridge of San Luis Rey. Together they observed how a mestizo , the Marquesa, Pepita, Esteban and the royal adjutant Don Gonzalo had entered the bridge. Manuel then discovered Micaela and spoke to her briefly. As she had just set foot on the bridge, it broke in the middle and tore the people on it to their death. At the last moment, Manuel Micaela, who had clung to the hanging straw mats of the bridge, was able to pull up and save.

production

Pre-production, shooting

It is a Benedict Bogeau production distributed by United Artists . The opening credits of the film explicitly refer to Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. According to an article in the New York Times , Benedict Bogeaus, a former Chicago businessman, allegedly paid $ 50,000 for the rights to the work. According to the film industry's journal The Hollywood Reporter , Bogeaus was negotiating with Rouben Mamoulian and Fritz Lang , whom he would have liked to direct . Pola Negri and Margo envisioned two of the leading actors in the production that he originally wanted to shoot in Technicolor. According to the Hollywood Reporter , Philip Tannura was announced as cameraman, but this was not confirmed. The Los Angeles Times noted that Reynaldo Luza, who served as a technical consultant and costume designer, was a celebrated Peruvian artist. Nazimova, an American actress of Russian origin, was considered the most important Ibsen actress of her time on stage . This was her last significant role in a film, after which she only shot the film drama When you said goodbye .

The shooting extended from the middle of September to the beginning of November 1943, plus additional scenes that were shot from November 10, 1943.

music

  • Poor Poor Mama by Dimitri Tiomkin and Frederick Herbert
  • The Devil Will Get You by Dimitri Tiomkin and Fredrick Herbert

template

Alleged portrait of La Perricholi on a medallion

There were some major deviations from Wilder's novel, which Time Magazine ranks in the Top 100 English-Language Novels published between 1913 and 2005. According to Thornten, he used the one-act drama Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée as a model, which also focuses on the central philosophical question of whether our life and death is determined by fate or by chance. Can you subsequently find an explanation for whether something was predetermined or whether our life begins and ends with absolute non-commitment. Brother Juniper tries to fathom this by asking himself whether there is a God who decides our life path, or whether our life takes place independently of someone who is superior to us.

Ultimately, Brother Juniper has to admit that he has not been able to prove that there is a supernatural order. The résumés of the five casualties partly overlap, but each form an independent whole. The fact that they ceased to exist almost at the same moment is probably due to chance.

Q'iswachaka suspension bridge of the Incas, similar to the one that plays a crucial role in the film

The original and the film have integrated two historical personalities into the plot, once Manuel de Amat y Juniet , who was Viceroy of Peru from 1761 to 1775, and his maitresse, the actress and singer La Perricholi , whose real name was Micaela Villegas (1748–1819) was. Jacques Offenbach made her the title heroine of his operetta La Périchole . Both Merimée and Wilder used the bridge over the Río Apurímac built by the Incas around 1350 as a model .

In the book there are the Marquesa, Pepita, Esteban, Uncle Pio and Jaime, Micaela's son, on the bridge when it collapsed in 1714 (!). Manuel had previously died of blood poisoning, which was the reason for his brother Esteban's attempted suicide in the book. The beautiful Camila Perichole, as she is called in the book, fell ill with smallpox and, disfigured by scars, withdrew to the mountains. Uncle Pio, who wanted to bring Camila's son to his mother, was on the bridge with the child when it collapsed. Jaime was one of the three children Camila had with the viceroy.

Unlike in the film, Uncle Pio cannot be the main narrator of the events. Rather, Brother Juniper spent years gathering facts, talking to family and friends of the victims and making notes. He then summarized his results in a book. Juniper's doubts about the omnipotence of the Catholic Church and the Kingdom were also fatal. The Inquisition condemned him as a heretic who was burned at the stake along with all of his writings, except for one that was overlooked. On the last pages of the novel we also learn that Camila (Micaela) returned to Lima to support the abbess and that Doña María's daughter Clara also visited the abbess. It is then also Clara who speaks the lines often quoted at the end of the novel: "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge between them is love - the only thing that lasts, the only meaning."

First release, film length

The film premiered in the United States on February 11, 1944, and ran on March 3, 1944 in New York and other cities in the country. It was published in Mexico in August 1944 and in Australia in November 1944. In January 1945 it was first seen in Sweden, in March 1945 in Portugal and in December 1950 in Japan. Further publications followed in Brazil, Greece, Italy, Spain and Venezuela.

Motion Picture Herald and Variety Reviews put the running time of the film at 107 minutes, other sources at 90 and 87 minutes, respectively.

criticism

Stephanie Thames wrote at Turner Classic Movies that Nazimova still has a force to be reckoned with. So she managed to steal Lynn Bari, who has a leading position in B-Movies and here the leading role, the show and put it in the shade.

The New York Times said the film was cumbersome and lengthy and, in a way, mocked the original.

The Movie & Video Guide wrote: "Thornton Wilder's moody, unusual story of five people meeting doom on a rickety bridge makes a slow moving film" ("Thornton Wilder's melancholy, unusual story of five people whose fate strikes on a rickety bridge, results in a dragging film ").

Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: “An intriguing novel is turned into tedious film drama, with actors, director, scenarist and production designer all making heavy weather” (“A fascinating novel becomes a boring film drama, with actors, one director , a scriptwriter and film architect who all cause bad weather ”).

Variety (1944), on the other hand, said: "As a remake for present-day audiences, up to their ears in war news, this picture will be a welcome divertissement" ("This remake offers a welcome change to the audience stricken with war news").

Award

Academy Awards 1945

Further films

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944) see screenplay information at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  2. ↑ The 17th Academy Awards | 1945 see Oscars.org (English)
  3. ↑ a b The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944) see notes at TCM (English)
  4. ↑ a b c The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944) see Articles at TCM (English). Retrieved February 9, 2019.
  5. ↑ The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944>) see original print information at TCM (English)
  6. ↑ a b Martin Grzimek: A forgotten masterpiece see deutschlandfunk.de
  7. ^ Leonard Maltin : The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944). In: Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 166.
  8. ^ Leslie Halliwell : The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944). In: Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 143.