blanche-2 "Lydia" from 1941 is a remake of Jacques Duvivier's 1937 'Un Carnet De Bal.' It retains the same plot and here is remade by Duvivier himself.Lydia MacMillan (Merle Oberon) is an old but still vital single woman who is visited by four ex-suitors: Michael (Joseph Cotton), Hans (Frank Andre), and Bob (George Reeves) who reminisce with her about the old days and how much they all loved her and wanted to marry her, and how, one way or another, it just didn't work out.It turns out that Lydia, from a good Boston family, only had one great love, Richard (Alan Marshal), who, after a few days together (during which I think we are to assume she lost her virginity) takes off in his boat. He leaves her a "Dear Jane" letter, stating that he'll be back after he clears things up with a woman who "has a claim on him." He gives her his grandmother's wedding ring and says he will keep sending her rings until he returns. She hears from him sporadically but she never sees him again.She can really never let go of her love for him, so she remains single, and devotes herself to her work with blind children, who attend a school she set up.In 'Un Carnet de Bal," the character is widowed and wonders how her life would have been had she married the other men who were in love with her, the men who danced with her one night that changed her life forever.The angle of "Lydia" is a little different and probably a little deeper. But it's still a film about nostalgia, youth, and disenchantment.Edna Mae Oliver plays Lydia's grandmother, and she's wonderful in this, her last film. She died the following year at the age of 59. People probably thought she was 75.Merle Oberon gives a lovely performance as Lydia, both as a young woman reveling in her beautiful gown, dancing, and being young, and as an older woman reminiscing. She tells each of the men that none of her really loved her because they never knew her; Michael loved "an angel," Hans, the blind composer/pianist she meets loved "the blond, blue eyed girl" described to him by a child whom he asked to describe Lydia and instead, she describes her doll; and Bob loved the young, wild thing that was ready to elope with him. Richard was the only man who truly knew her, and with him, she was herself. Or so she believes.Duvivier did the best he could with this Americanized version, but it can't live up to 'Un Carnet De Bal' with its French sensibility.Nevertheless, pleasant and worth seeing. A bittersweet story of a woman looking back on her life. We all do it at some point.

ksf-2 Well, as soon as we see that Joseph Cotten and Edna Oliver are in this, we know it won't be a bad film... it was nominated for best Music in a drama, but The Devil and Daniel Webster won it that year. Lydia (Merle Oberon) and Michael (Cotten) meet up in their later years, and reminisce about the past, which we always seem to remember as better than it was. Edna Oliver is (once again)the overbearing, frumpy grandmother who is very set in her ways, and is determined that Lydia will only be with a proper gentleman.Lydia and her old beaus talk about "the grand ball" they had attended in their youth, with the harps, mirrors, and chandeliers, which everyone remembers differently. Then, we flash back to the glorious football game, on which they also disagree. We flash forward, then backward, and forward and backward, and its all a lot of work to keep up with where we are now. It's all done competently, but there are no sparks between her and the men from her past, and its a little like reading a history book. It just seems to be a lot of talk about being in love way back when. Then, about halfway through, Lydia meets up with a little boy who changes her life. Then we find out how Lydia got to where she is today. It's entertaining enough, but not one of my favorite films. Produced by Alexander Korda, who happened to be Oberon's hubby at the time.

Alex da Silva Merle Oberon (Lydia) is invited to a reunion where 3 of her former suitors are waiting to meet her once more. Everyone is now old and the 3 men - scientist Joseph Cotten (Michael), blind pianist Hans Jaray (Frank) and sporty George Reeves (Bob) - are dying to find out why she never entertained any of them. The reason is that there was a 4th man - sailor Alan Marshal (Richard) - who Lydia was always in love with and he arrives at the end of the film and delivers a bombshell. Before this, Merle Oberon recounts the story of her life during the time that they all knew her. The film is told in flashback and wrapped up with Alan Marshal's arrival.It sounds interesting but it's not. Unfortunately, the cast are terrible. Merle Oberon is annoying and I'm afraid that we are just not interested in her life at all. This makes the whole film quite tedious as we just don't care about what happens in her love live. The story introduces four other bland characters - Cotten is likable but dull - Jaray is sickly sentimentally blind and so we have to have a rubbish boring section about blind kids which will make you want to heave with it's political correctness (although at least in those days blind children went to a special school for the blind instead of being integrated into a classroom with sighted children) - Reeves plays for comedy and is terrible at it. He's just not funny at all - and Marshal is both bland and blind (to love).The story is further ruined by a soundtrack that has been turned up disproportionally high so that every time there is any music or sound effects, the audience can't hear the dialogue as it is completely drowned out. As a result there are many complete sections that we can't hear and therefore we cant follow the plot. Who the hell let this go through! We hear more of people's footsteps than actual talking.A final word goes to the ghastly idea of making everyone look old. We have 5 gruesome looking characters who are all impossible to identify with coz they look like freaks, and Merle Oberon makes the fatal error of thinking that she can act old by shaking her head a lot every time she speaks coz that's what old people do. What a ham.The only good thing about this film is Edna May Oliver (Lydia's grandmother) who does provide some comic moments. If you like this film, you are a very boring person. It's sh*t.

jaykay-10 If you can feel the pain and longing of others (and who can't?), this picture will break your heart. Yes, it is slow, even plodding at times, but the ending overrides all of that.Being totally, hopelessly (or is it hopefully?) in love, she rejects the stability offered by a loyal, devoted suitor and friend for the memory of the one man who made her blood boil. Although he did not return to her, as promised, she thinks of him constantly and dares to cherish the hope that one day he may, after all, return to her.She is an old woman when in fact he does reappear by chance in her life. Pathetically, this is to somehow justify the wasted years. She is trembling with anticipation, ready to learn why he was unable to return to her, his lover, eager to forgive even though it has cost her youth and happiness.Need I go on? He doesn't even remember who she is. He was the one man in her life; she learns much too late that she was obviously one of a great many women in his.More than a "women's picture" or conventional tearjerker, this one deserves your attention. Just be patient.