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twittercomfrnklin2001-blog · 13 hours

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That Forsyte Woman

To borrow a line from TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942), what MGM did to John Galsworthy’s THE MAN OF PROPERTY (and bits of IN CHANCERY), Hitler did to Poland. It starts with a ridiculous title, THAT FORSYTE WOMAN (1949, TCM), which sounds like an SCTV parody starring Edith Prickly (“Gang Way for That Forsyte Woman”). Cramming even one and a fraction of the six novels from THE FORSTYE SAGA into just under two hours would be a desecration under any circumstances. But Galsworthy’s study of Victorian materialism and hypocrisy is reduced to just another women’s picture. Noble Irene Forsyte, stuck in a loveless marriage to the straitlaced Soames (Errol Flynn), fights her passion for her niece’s (Janet Leigh) fiancé (Robert Young, goddess help us) while her cousin-in-law (Walter Pidgeon) waits in the wings for everything to work itself out.

I suppose I should reveal that the 1967 BBC adaptation of THE FORSYTE SAGA is my favorite TV series ever. Of course, they had the time to tell the story in full and include plot details that couldn’t get into a Hollywood film almost two decades earlier. One simple change, having the family black sheep (Pidgeon) run off with his daughter’s governess after his wife died, rather than before, renders the rest of the family, even kindhearted old Harry Davenport as his father, a bunch of judgmental twits. Irene never gets to consummate her love for the fiancé, so the scandal becomes so much dishwater. And Soames’ attack on her when he finds out about the non-affair is reduced to a slap. But there are also MGM changes, like having Young remind Garson of a lost love in her youth, as if anybody could be tortured by memories of him.

Surprisingly, there are things that work. Director Compton Bennett stages some funny business for the three ancient Forsyte aunts, who consistently have their tea in unison, as if in a Gilbert and Sullivan chorus. And the dancing at Leigh’s engagement party is so charmingly staged it almost makes the film feel like one of those great old period romances Hollywood used to do well. The lush production values make it all lovely to look at, and Bronislau Kaper contributed a solid psychological score. Within the role MGM created for her, which isn’t much like Galsworthy’s Irene (a role Deborah Kerr could have played beautifully), Garson does a good job. She’s witty when she needs to be and doesn’t overdo the suffering. Leigh has nice moments when she’s not delivering her lines in pure California. She has a silent scene learning about the non-affair that’s quite touching. Flynn, playing against type, is very effective, as is Davenport. And the wonderful character actress Marjorie Eaton creates a character out of very little as Aunt Hester. But then there’s Robert Young. What were they smoking when they cast him? He’s ten years too old for the role, not in the least British and about as romantic as a cold dish of stewed prunes. To their credit, MGM tried to get Michael Wilding, who would have been much better, but he wasn’t available. How does Young become a second choice? Five minutes into his performance, I was convinced Phil Silvers could have played the role better. Or maybe the Ritz Brothers, doing some lines in unison and alternating others.

#greer garson #errol flynn #walter pidgeon #janet leigh #robert young #john galsworthy #the forsyte saga #marjorie eaton #harry davenport

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cleoenfaserum · 3 months

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THE GREEN MANSIONS (1959)

Audrey Hepburn on the set of Green Mansions (1959)

REBLOGGED from audreyhepburninblackandwhite

Green Mansions is a 1959 American adventure-romance film directed by Mel Ferrer. It is based upon the 1904 novel Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson. The film starred Audrey Hepburn (who at the time was married to Ferrer) as Rima, a jungle girl who falls in love with a Venezuelan traveller played by Anthony Perkins. Also appearing in the film were Lee J. Cobb, Sessue Hayakawa and Henry Silva. The score was by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Bronislau Kaper. Green Mansions (film) - Wikipedia

IMdB: 5'3 ADVENTURE-DRAMA-ROMANCE RUNTIME: 1h 44m

A young man in the jungles of Venezuela meets a strange girl of the forest and falls in love with her.

933 https://ok.ru/video/1732105079448

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halidaia · 6 months

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Them!

“Them!” is a horror movie from the 1950s, and Bronislau Kaper was the person who composed the music for it. Honestly, for the time period, “Them!” is quite realistic, good plot, suspenseful, all of it. But I’m not scared of the horror movie as much as I am of the woman who was able to carry a baby for nine months, give birth to him, look into his eyes, and, with a straight face, name him Bronislau

#them #movies #horror #1950s #bronislau #ants

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leaarong · 8 months

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THE FBI (Season 2) - Main and End Titles - Bronislau Kaper

#youtube

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badgaymovies · 2 years

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The Brothers Karamazov (1958)

The Brothers Karamazov by #RichardBrooks starring #YulBrynner, #MariaSchell and #LeeJCobb, "To watch it for the actors is to get great satisfaction from the experience", Now reviewed on MyOldAddiction.com

RICHARD BROOKS Bil’s rating (out of 5): BBB.5 USA, 1958. Avon Productions. Screenplay by Richard Brooks, adaptation by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, based on the novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Constance Garnett. Cinematography by John Alton. Produced by Pandro S. Berman. Music by Bronislau Kaper. Production Design by Paul Groesse, William A. Horning. Costume Design by Walter…

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doubtspirit · 3 years

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Without Love (1945) M-G-M's Star-Hit! Spencer Tracy & Katherine Hepburn

She was a bashful bride! He walked in his sleeps! Staring Lucille Ball, Keenan Wynn, Carl Esmond, Patricia Morison and Felix Bressart. Directed by Harold S. Bucquet. Based on the play by Philip Barry. Produced by Lawrence Weingarten. Cinematography by Karl Freund. Music by Bronislau Kaper.

#without love #1945 #classic hollywood #hollywood #spencer tracy #katherine hepburn #lucille ball #mgm #movie posters #keenan wynn #carl esmond #patricia morison #felix bressart #mupl #harold s. bucquet #philip barry #lawrence weingarten #karl freund #bronislau kaper

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nelson-riddle-me-this · 4 years

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Song-a-Day July, #15:

"Take My Love"

MUSIC by Bronisław Kaper

LYRICS by Helen Deutsch

#song a day july #take my love #bronislau kaper #bronisław kaper #helen deutsch #the glass slipper #movie musicals

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silezukuk · 7 years

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Leslie Caron - Hi-Lili Hi-Lo [music Bronislau Kaper, lyrics Helen Deutsch] / film “Lili”, dir. Charles Walters, 1953] / [Claude LE-QUANG]

#leslie caron #bronislau kaper #helen deutsch #charles walters #50s #βίντεο τραγούδι

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byneddiedingo · 2 years

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Joan Crawford in A Woman's Face (George Cukor, 1941) Cast: Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Conrad Veidt, Osa Massen, Reginald Owen, Albert Bassermann, Marjorie Main, Donald Meek, Connie Gilchrist, Richard Nichols, Henry Kolker, George Zucco, Henry Daniell. Screenplay: Donald Ogden Stewart, Elliot Paul, based on a play by Francis de Croisset. Cinematography: Robert H. Planck. Art direction: Cedric Gibbons. Film editing: Frank Sullivan. Music: Bronislau Kaper. I don't know why the screenplay for A Woman's Face is credited as an adaptation of the play Il Était une Fois by Francis de Crosset with no mention of the 1938 Swedish film En Kvinnas Ansikte, directed by Gustaf Molander and starring Ingrid Bergman. The 1941 A Woman's Face is clearly a remake of that film, which was released in the United States in 1939. Both films are set in Sweden, when as far as I can tell, de Croisset set his play in France, and both Bergman and Joan Crawford play characters named Anna Holm. Moreover, Crawford had seen Bergman's film and pressured MGM to buy the rights to it for her. As well she should have: Although Louis B. Mayer reportedly objected to Crawford's determination to play a disfigured woman, thinking it would hurt her at the box office just as she was entering her mid-30s, a dangerous time for a female movie star, the film gave Crawford a chance to show her stuff -- to play vulnerable as well as tough. She starts off tough, as a member of a gang of blackmailers, then softens when Torsten Barring begins to woo her, apparently indifferent to her scarred face. But since he's played by Conrad Veidt, we know he's up to no good. Meanwhile, another man, the cosmetic surgeon Dr. Segert (Melvyn Douglas), enters Anna's life -- ironically, since his wife is the target of one of the gang's blackmail schemes. Several implausible plots begin to intersect and everything winds up in court with Anna accused of murder. Flashbacks abound as everything gets sorted out. Meanwhile, Crawford acts up a storm in a role that's a bridge between her younger, scrappy MGM persona and the put-upon middle-aged women of her later career at Warner Bros.

#A Woman's Face #George Cukor #Joan Crawford

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dweemeister · 7 years

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Lili (1953)

There is something whimsical about certain old Hollywood Studio System movies that makes it unimaginable that such films of that type would ever be greenlighted by studio executives today. One of those films is Charles Walters’ Lili, adapted from Paul Gallico’s 1950 short story “The Man Who Hated People”. Lili is a peculiar film that defies categorization – it is neither a pure drama or comedy, and it also lightly draws upon on elements from fantasy films and musicals. Given a turn towards mature themes in American cinema in the 1960s and 70s and long-standing cultural attitudes towards lighthearted fantasy, Lili might be insufferable to some. For those willing to give it a chance and allowing it to whisk them from anything resembling reality, Leslie Caron’s starring performance – two years following a triumphant screen debut opposite Gene Kelly in An American in Paris – elevates the flimsy material.

Sixteen-year-old Lili Daurier (Caron) is an orphaned country girl wandering post-WWII France, seeking a close friend to her recently-deceased father as she hopes to find employment. That friend has recently died, and his successor harasses Lili. She is rescued by a traveling carnival magician named Marc (Jean-Pierre Aumont). Lili becomes infatuated with Marc, as he secures her a job as a carnival waitress. But instead of waiting tables, Lili – who has never experienced magic tricks before – neglects her duties as she is transfixed with Marc’s dinnertime show. Lili is sacked as a result, with Marc displaying little sympathy for her naïveté. Told to home, Lili instead attempts suicide but not before the carnival’s puppeteer Paul (Mel Ferrer, who voices the puppets but does not control their movements) strikes conversation through his puppets. Lili obviously has never heard of or experienced a puppet show either, as she treats Paul’s cast of puppet characters as if they were real. Their interactions draw a crowd, thanks to Lili’s earnestness and belief that these puppets are her friends. Paul and his partner Jacquot (Kurt Kasznar) offer Lili a job of being part of the show. She accepts, and several of heartfelt conversations between girl and puppets follow.

A special type of performance is required for this film, and Caron’s acting is the appropriate mixture to make this amalgam of fantasy, musical, and drama work. Like numerous actors that might act in front of Big Bird or Kermit, Caron must treat the puppet characters as if they were real (the script demands it, in addition to the magic needed to make Lili work). With no Muppets or Sesame Street in the 1950s to act as a thespian precedent, Caron – as well as the puppeteers – drew from a then-popular television program named Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. From there, Caron and puppeteers Walton and O’Rourke (a famous cabaret puppeteer act) and George Latshaw must be attuned to the other’s nuances in physicality and personality. Never annoying nor cloying, Caron is simply in her element here. A few years prior, Caron was a teenage ballerina in a Paris troupe when she was noticed by an admiring Gene Kelly. With Kelly’s lobbying of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) executives, Caron became an MGM contractee before production on An American in Paris – Lili would be her fifth film with MGM and her second major starring role. Her appearance as the titular Gigi would be five years away.

The screenplay, written by Helen Deutsch, allows for some rather intimate exchanges of dialogue between Lili and the puppets as the puppets display their sensitivity to her anxieties and sources of joyfulness. This combination of excellent acting and puppetry as well as attentive screenwriting delivers Lili past sugary mediocrity.

For outside of the several puppet show scenes, Lili is overflowing with lackadaisical performances and a romance between Caron and Ferrer’s character that is never fully realized and is, frankly, a tinge unbelievable and creepy if one thinks too hard about it. Outside of Caron’s central performance, the remainder of the supporting cast feels wasted – whether they are playing caricatures (Zsa Zsa Gabor, like in so many of the films she starred in, is a peculiar afterthought) or are just there (Mel Ferrer, despite being billed second, dials in an undemanding, charisma-bereft turn that gets sucked into the mire of the story despite his obvious possessiveness... would his character just fucking smile for once?). When leaving the interactions between Caron and the puppets, Lili becomes a film without sturdy supports, with very little amid the meritorious production design from the team of Cedric Gibbons, Paul Groesse, Edwin B. Willis, and Arthur Krams. The film’s carnival tentpoles are on the verge of snapping at the slightest application of subplot stress.

A lushly-composed score by Polish-American Bronislau Kaper is rooted in the lone original song appearing in Lili. That song is “Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo” (Kaper wrote the melody, which sounds rather German for a film set in France; Deutsch with the lyrics), which appears in the first encounter between Lili and the puppets. It appears immediately after Lili’s most despairing episode – a song with heartbreaking lyrics becoming a source of immense uplift. “Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo” will never appear on a list on the most memorable musical moments from that musical factory known as MGM (okay, it was featured in 1976′s That’s Entertainment, Part II and it was a minor commercial hit that did better in continental Europe than America), but Kaper and Deutsch’s song embodies that MGM musical mentality to near-perfection. Sing though your head and heart might be in agony, these films espoused. Smile and put on the show because that’s what movie stars are meant to do.

Those who have seen La La Land (2016) and have seen next to zero MGM musicals may recognize a narrative device employed at Lili’s conclusion. Despite the fact Lili is not a pure musical, the sloppy narrative is concluded with an abstract sequence where Lili’s imagination and most internal thoughts are expressed through dance. This concluding scene is not as technically accomplished as other such sequences, instead appearing perfunctory.

It’s as if Charles Walters – a director with an established track record of solid musicals including Good News (1947), Easter Parade (1948), and Summer Stock (1950) – could not decide on what exactly he wished this film to be. The structure and the parameters for a worthwhile musical, maybe even a fantasy or light romance, is there. But Walters and Deutsch never commit to a direction, and Lili – even providing for Caron’s magnificent acting and the emotional fragility she brings to her character – suffers from that indecision. But that indecision is not enough to prevent me from ever recommending Lili to anyone. Its deficiencies make it fascinating to watch, returning viewers briefly to a time of prolonged innocence, when the world outside one’s doorstep was never anything but enthralling.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating.

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livingcorner · 3 years

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The Secret Garden

An orphaned girl changes the lives of those she encounters at a remote estate.

Film Details

You're reading: The Secret Garden

Sep 1949

World premiere in Boston: 30 Apr 1949

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp.

Loew’s Inc.

United States

Based on the novel The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (New York, 1909).

Technical Specs

1h 32m

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Black and White, Color (Technicolor)

1.37 : 1

Read more: Hardiness Zones in Australia

Synopsis

Mary Lennox, a spoiled young English girl living in India at the turn of the century, is orphaned when her parents die of cholera, and is sent to Yorkshire to live with her wealthy uncle, Archibald Craven. Mrs. Medlock, Craven’s cruel and ill-tempered housekeeper, meets Mary at the port and escorts her to her uncle’s eerie mansion. Craven refuses to meet Mary, and Mrs. Medlock warns her against snooping around the darkened house. When Mary asks about the screams she hears from another part of the house, Mrs. Medlock locks in her room for the rest of the night. The next morning, Mary meets Martha, a maid who laughs incessantly and who refuses to obey her commands. Mary later befriends Martha’s young brother Dickon, who tells her that there is a secret, locked garden on the estate, and that Craven buried the key to it. Mary finally meets Craven just before he sets out on a trip to London, and during her brief meeting with him, she learns that his wife was crushed to death by a tree limb ten years earlier. Soon after Craven leaves, Mary sees a raven digging for worms outside the house and notices that the bird has unearthed the buried key to the secret garden. Late that night, while investigating the source of the mysterious screams in the house, Mary discovers Craven’s young son Colin. Colin, who is bedridden and is being treated by a doctor for paralysis, admits to the tantrums and demands that Mary obey his orders. Mary, however, refuses to indulge Colin and eventually wins his respect and friendship. The following day, Mary and Dickon discover the entrance to the garden behind some bushes, and use the key to open the gate. Once inside, Mary and Dickon find a neglected garden containing a variety of pretty flowers. They also find a fallen tree limb on a chair next to a table that was once set for tea, and realize that they have discovered the place where Craven’s wife was accidentally killed. Later, Mary introduces Colin to Dickon, and tells him stories about their visits to the secret garden. One day, a new doctor, Dr. Fortescue, examines Colin and determines that he is suffering from nothing more than fear, and suggests that the irons placed on his legs by the previous doctor be removed. Dickon and Mary later take Colin in a wheelchair to the secret garden and show him all the flowers they have been growing. Excited, Colin attempts to stand up on his own but falls. Later, when Craven returns from London, Fortescue accuses him of wallowing in his grief and transferring his longing to die to his son, thus causing Colin’s physical deterioration. Craven angrily rejects Fortescue’s accusation, and announces that he will be selling the estate and moving to Italy with Colin. Craven later has a change of heart, however, when he enters the garden and sees Colin rise from his wheelchair to walk toward him. Astounded at Colin’s sudden ability to walk, Craven embraces his son and decides to remain at the house.

Film Details

Sep 1949

World premiere in Boston: 30 Apr 1949

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp.

Loew’s Inc.

United States

Based on the novel The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (New York, 1909).

Technical Specs

1h 32m

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Black and White, Color (Technicolor)

1.37 : 1

Articles

Read more: Community gardens | Soil Science Society of America

The Secret Garden (1949)

Margaret O’Brien shot to stardom at MGM in Journey for Margaret (1942), at the tender age of five, brilliantly playing a traumatized British war orphan. Among her fans was Lionel Barrymore, who co-starred with O’Brien in Dr. Gillespie’s Criminal Case (1943), and declared that she was the only actress other than his sister Ethel to move him to tears. O’Brien’s best performance was as the youngest sister in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), which earned her a special Academy Award, and praise from critic and novelist James Agee, who called her “incredibly vivid and eloquent – almost as hypnotizing as Garbo.”

By the late 1940s, however, the quality of O’Brien’s films had declined, or she was miscast, as in the studio’s all-star Little Women (1949), in which she played Beth. She was also getting older, and wasn’t quite as adorable. However, she was perfectly cast as the melancholy orphan in The Secret Garden.

Her co-star, Dean Stockwell, was also excellent as the traumatized, temperamental cousin. Just a year older than O’Brien, Stockwell hadn’t been acting as long as she had, but he’d also worked with some impressive co-stars, including Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in his second film, Anchors Aweigh (1945). He’d played Myrna Loy and William Powell’s son in Song of the Thin Man (1947), Gregory Peck’s son in Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), and the title character in the cult film, The Boy with Green Hair (1948). Yorkshire-born Brian Roper played Dickon, the neighbor boy who introduces Mary to the garden. (Roper would reprise the role in a 1952 British television miniseries of The Secret Garden.) A strong cast of mostly British character actors ably supported the young stars.

Producer-director Clarence Brown had directed two of MGM’s best family films, National Velvet (1944) and The Yearling (1946). He only produced The Secret Garden, turning the directing chores over to Fred M. Wilcox, who also had experience with family films – he had directed Lassie Come Home(1943), and two Lassie sequels. Together, they created a richly atmospheric production for The Secret Garden, from the moody, spooky Victorian mansion where the family lives, to the scenes in the lush restored garden, which are the only portions of the movie filmed in color – much in the same way as the Oz sequences in The Wizard of Oz (1939) were in color, and the Kansas scenes in black and white. Strangely, even though Oz had set the precedent, some critics appeared confused by the use of color in The Secret Garden. And they felt, as did the Variety critic, that “the allegorical and psychological implications that have been carried over from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s book are clearly for the grown-up trade. Not only that, but a good bit of the production is designed to create eerie terror that may discourage parents from letting moppets see the pic.” In this era when even the youngest “moppets” take Harry Potter in stride, however, such criticism seems quaint, and The Secret Garden seems ahead of its time.

The Secret Garden turned out to be Margaret O’Brien’s final MGM film. She made one film at Columbia in 1951 before retiring from the screen. A few years later, she made an unsuccessful comeback, and worked occasionally in summer stock and television. Dean Stockwell also retired from the screen several times, but made two very successful comebacks — first as a young adult in such films as Compulsion (1959) and Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962), and in middle age, playing eccentric characters (Dr. Yueh in Dune (1984), Ben in Blue Velvet, 1986). He still works regularly in films and television.

Director: Fred M. Wilcox Producer: Clarence Brown Screenplay: Robert Ardrey, based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett Cinematography: Ray June Editor: Robert J. Kern Costume Design: Walter Plunkett Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons, Urie McCleary Music: Bronislau Kaper Principal Cast: Margaret O’Brien (Mary Lennox), Herbert Marshall (Archibald Craven), Dean Stockwell (Colin Craven), Gladys Cooper (Mrs. Medlock), Elsa Lanchester (Martha), Brian Roper (Dickon), Reginald Owen (Ben Weatherstaff). BW&C-92m. Closed captioning. Descriptive Video.

by Margarita Landazuri

The Secret Garden (1949)

The Secret Garden (1949) is based on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 children’s classic, set in Yorkshire, about a lonely orphan and her invalid cousin whose spirits are revived when they revive the neglected garden of the title. There was a silent film version of the story, and several later screen and television versions, but this was the only one featuring a major child star in the leading role of Mary Lennox. Margaret O’Brien shot to stardom at MGM in Journey for Margaret (1942), at the tender age of five, brilliantly playing a traumatized British war orphan. Among her fans was Lionel Barrymore, who co-starred with O’Brien in Dr. Gillespie’s Criminal Case (1943), and declared that she was the only actress other than his sister Ethel to move him to tears. O’Brien’s best performance was as the youngest sister in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), which earned her a special Academy Award, and praise from critic and novelist James Agee, who called her “incredibly vivid and eloquent – almost as hypnotizing as Garbo.” By the late 1940s, however, the quality of O’Brien’s films had declined, or she was miscast, as in the studio’s all-star Little Women (1949), in which she played Beth. She was also getting older, and wasn’t quite as adorable. However, she was perfectly cast as the melancholy orphan in The Secret Garden. Her co-star, Dean Stockwell, was also excellent as the traumatized, temperamental cousin. Just a year older than O’Brien, Stockwell hadn’t been acting as long as she had, but he’d also worked with some impressive co-stars, including Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in his second film, Anchors Aweigh (1945). He’d played Myrna Loy and William Powell’s son in Song of the Thin Man (1947), Gregory Peck’s son in Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), and the title character in the cult film, The Boy with Green Hair (1948). Yorkshire-born Brian Roper played Dickon, the neighbor boy who introduces Mary to the garden. (Roper would reprise the role in a 1952 British television miniseries of The Secret Garden.) A strong cast of mostly British character actors ably supported the young stars. Producer-director Clarence Brown had directed two of MGM’s best family films, National Velvet (1944) and The Yearling (1946). He only produced The Secret Garden, turning the directing chores over to Fred M. Wilcox, who also had experience with family films – he had directed Lassie Come Home(1943), and two Lassie sequels. Together, they created a richly atmospheric production for The Secret Garden, from the moody, spooky Victorian mansion where the family lives, to the scenes in the lush restored garden, which are the only portions of the movie filmed in color – much in the same way as the Oz sequences in The Wizard of Oz (1939) were in color, and the Kansas scenes in black and white. Strangely, even though Oz had set the precedent, some critics appeared confused by the use of color in The Secret Garden. And they felt, as did the Variety critic, that “the allegorical and psychological implications that have been carried over from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s book are clearly for the grown-up trade. Not only that, but a good bit of the production is designed to create eerie terror that may discourage parents from letting moppets see the pic.” In this era when even the youngest “moppets” take Harry Potter in stride, however, such criticism seems quaint, and The Secret Garden seems ahead of its time. The Secret Garden turned out to be Margaret O’Brien’s final MGM film. She made one film at Columbia in 1951 before retiring from the screen. A few years later, she made an unsuccessful comeback, and worked occasionally in summer stock and television. Dean Stockwell also retired from the screen several times, but made two very successful comebacks — first as a young adult in such films as Compulsion (1959) and Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962), and in middle age, playing eccentric characters (Dr. Yueh in Dune (1984), Ben in Blue Velvet, 1986). He still works regularly in films and television. Director: Fred M. Wilcox Producer: Clarence Brown Screenplay: Robert Ardrey, based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett Cinematography: Ray June Editor: Robert J. Kern Costume Design: Walter Plunkett Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons, Urie McCleary Music: Bronislau Kaper Principal Cast: Margaret O’Brien (Mary Lennox), Herbert Marshall (Archibald Craven), Dean Stockwell (Colin Craven), Gladys Cooper (Mrs. Medlock), Elsa Lanchester (Martha), Brian Roper (Dickon), Reginald Owen (Ben Weatherstaff). BW&C-92m. Closed captioning. Descriptive Video. by Margarita Landazuri

Notes

Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel was serialized in The American Magazine between 1910 and 1911. Matthew Boulton’s name is misspelled “Mathew” in the onscreen credits. A December 1946 Hollywood Reporter news item indicates that Claude Jarman, Jr. was orignally slated for the part played by Dean Stockwell. A Hollywood Reporter news item on April 7, 1947 indicated that M-G-M had planned to shoot the film in England on a “newly erected studio,” but the film was eventually shot on the M-G-M lot in Culver City, CA. The film’s Technicolor sequences were those that took place in the garden. Modern sources credit Marni Nixon with dubbing Margaret O’Brien’s singing voice. Other film adaptations of Burnett’s novel are The Secret Garden, a 1919 Famous Players-Lasky Corp. production, directed by G. Butler Clonebough (a pseudonym of Gustav von Seyffertitz) and starring Lila Lee and Spottiswoode Aitken (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1911-20; F1.3908); a 1984 BBC production, also entitled The Secret Garden, directed by Katrina Murray and starring Sarah Hollis and David Patterson; and a 1993 Warner Bros./American Zoetrope production, The Secret Garden, directed by Agnieszka Holland and starring Maggie Smith and Kate Maberly.

Source: https://livingcorner.com.au Category: Garden

source https://livingcorner.com.au/the-secret-garden-2/

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