JohnHowardReid
NOTES: Oddly, despite Vivien Leigh's box-office power following her triumph in Gone With The Wind, this picture failed to become the tremendous domestic hit M-G-M hoped for. It did ignite the U.K. box-office, winning the number 4 spot for the most popular films of the year. In Australia, it did even better coming in third. Only Gone With The Wind itself and Mr Smith Goes To Washington sold more Oz tickets. But as far as M-G-M and Hollywood generally were concerned, overseas triumphs, no matter how bountiful, were at most the cream on the pudding. The wishes of the great American public were all that really counted. American filmgoers had failed to warm to Miss Leigh, so she was let go. She was not invited back to Hollywood until 1951, for A Streetcar Named Desire. And after that she made only one more Hollywood movie, her last, Ship of Fools (1965). The stage play opened on Broadway at the Fulton on 6 January 1930. June Walker, Glenn Hunter and Cora Witherspoon starred. Reviews were at most lukewarm, and the play lasted only 64 performances, returning its backers less than 50% of their money. Sherwood did manage to sell the screen rights to Universal who produced a film version in 1931. M-G-M made a third screen version in 1956 called Gaby.
COMMENT: Robert E. Sherwood's update of Romeo and Juliet has become a classic in Australia. It was always popular in Oz. When M-G-M re-issued the movie with a spectacular season at Sydney's prestige Liberty Theatre in the 1950s, it took even more Oz money than on its initial release. It's not hard to understand why. Most everybody, including Australians, love well-told tales of star-crossed lovers. Waterloo Bridge, with its powerful plotting, believable characters, remarkably stylish direction and absolutely lavish production values, is probably the best ever made.
Perfectly cast, Vivien Leigh makes a most appealing heroine. In a difficult role, she superbly brings off a compelling, richly shaded portrayal. Co-star Taylor is convincingly earnest, whilst Virginia Field is so moving, she almost steals the picture. Other supporting players who are not outdone include Lucile Watson, who figures in one of the film's strongest dramatic scenes; C. Aubrey Smith, always a delight; and the rivettingly cruel Ouspenskaya.A war not so much between two families as two classes, here we have Shakespeare brilliantly transposed to wartime England. Field is Juliet's nurse. There's even a friendly but impotent friar ("I'm sorry, but it's the law!") and much talk about honor - though the hero has no Tybalt to defend it.
When it comes to technical expertise, it's hard to excel M-G-M (except of course for sound recording). This Waterloo Bridge is a class production, produced with taste and style. Evocatively photographed - every black-and-white image is a masterpiece of attractive lighting and composition - in marvelously detailed sets, with powerfully skillful film editing - as in the climax where lumbering ambulances are made to loom out of the mist like ravaging monsters - and a superlatively atmospheric music score.
James Hitchcock
"Waterloo Bridge" started life as a stage-play; this is the second of three cinematic adaptations. (The others are a 1931 film, also called "Waterloo Bridge", and "Gaby" from 1956). The film opens on 3rd September 1939, the day World War II broke out. Roy Cronin, a senior officer in the British Army, is travelling to France to join his regiment. He briefly stops on Waterloo Bridge to reminisce about his experiences during the First World War, and the rest of the story is told in flashback. His memories, however, are not of the actual fighting but of his romance with a beautiful ballerina named Myra Lester whom he first met on the bridge. The two plan to marry, but are prevented from doing so by circumstances. Myra loses her job with the ballet company whose formidable director, Madame Olga Kirowa, objects to her relationship with Roy. (Her surname was presumably chosen to suggest an association with the famous Kirov Ballet, although the ballet did not acquire that name, that of an assassinated Soviet politician, until 1934). Believing- wrongly- that Roy has been killed in action, and unable to find alternative employment, Myra and her friend Kitty descend into prostitution to prevent themselves from starving.Yes, you heard right. Prostitution. And that in the heyday of the Production Code. I have never seen the 1931 version of this story, but understand that it dealt with the subject much more frankly and as a result was banned in America after the Code came into force. It is therefore surprising that MGM could get away with making a remake, although the subject is dealt with very cautiously. (As Dr Johnson said of a dog walking on its hind legs, it is not done well, but one is surprised to see it done at all). The dreaded p-word is never actually uttered, and the dubious nature of Myra and Kitty's method of earning a living is conveyed only by euphemism and innuendo. Nevertheless, the audience is left in no doubt that the two are what would have been called, in the language of the day, "fallen women".Which leads us to the film's greatest plot-hole. The screenwriters were doubtless influenced by memories of the "hungry thirties" when many women may well have faced the unenviable choice which confronts Myra and Kitty. As others have pointed out, however, economic conditions in 1917/18 were very different. Even if Myra and Kitty could not find work as dancers (and there must have been many West End shows catering for soldiers on leave), there were a great number of other jobs available to women, either in work directly related to the war effort (nursing, munitions), or in industries left desperately short of labour by the exodus of men to join the Forces. The film's central premise, therefore, just does not ring true. The "extended flashback" structure also struck me as a mistake because it means that the viewer is aware, from the very beginning of the film, that Roy survives the war and therefore knows that the report of his death must be erroneous. It might have made for greater emotional impact if we had been allowed to believe, with Myra, that Roy has died.The film's other main weakness is the miscasting of Robert Taylor as Roy. (Vivien Leigh would have preferred her husband Laurence Olivier as her leading man, but was overruled). When the film began I wondered why Roy had an American accent and two possibilities occurred to me, besides the obvious one that Taylor did not want to attempt a British one. The first was that Roy was a Canadian, the second that he was an American who had volunteered for the British Army before America's entry into the war and had subsequently acquired British nationality. Neither, however, turned out to be correct. It transpires that he is actually a member of an aristocratic Scottish family, and as such Taylor seems completely unconvincing. Had the script been rewritten to make him an American he might have been quite good.On the positive side, Leigh is heartbreakingly beautiful. (This was her first film after "Gone with the Wind"). The film was a box-office success when first released, and her popularity must have played a major part in this. Her role may have been badly written, but she plays it with great sincerity and enables the viewer to empathise with Myra. I would say that she is the best thing about the film, although there are also good contributions in smaller roles from Maria Ouspenskaya as Kirowa and C. Aubrey Smith as Roy's elderly uncle. Overall, however, "Waterloo Bridge" is a film which does not hold up well today, partly because this sort of sentimental melodrama has gone out of fashion, partly because of its own weaknesses in plot and casting. It is hard to understand why both Leigh and Taylor considered it a personal favourite; both acted in much better films than this. 5/10Some goofs. The church where Roy and Myra hope to marry appears as a vast Gothic cathedral from the outside and as a modest chapel in the Classical style from the inside. We learn that the badge of Roy's regiment (the fictitious Rendleshire Fusiliers) is a broken lance, but he wears a different badge on his cap, the flaming grenade of the Grenadier Guards. The style of his uniform looks more American than British, and other British soldiers, even in scenes set at the end of the war in 1918, are seen wearing the uniforms of 1914/15, with peaked caps rather than helmets. The list of officers killed in action is headed by a Gunner; the term "Gunner" in the British Army refers to a private solider in the artillery, not to an officer. And why are Myra and the other female characters all dressed in the fashions of 1940, even though the action takes place more than twenty years earlier?
elle-787-399491
I have the 'Caeser & Cleopatra' film, as well as 'Gone With The Wind,' 'That Hamilton Woman', 'Anna Karennina, 'A Yank At Oxford,' and 'A Streetcar Named Desire' however, 'Waterloo Bridge' is my favorite. Lady Olivier was gorgeous and her ability to take on such a role on a subject that may not have been palatable to others at the time. It took me a long time to find this film, and when I did I was not disappointed. Of all the films listed above I found her quiet beauty and her hope for herself in this particular film captivating. In my humble opinion, Vivien Leigh surpasses even Katherine Hepburn. If you can find 'Waterloo Bridge' you too will love this film.
