"Joan of Arc" is a film with a much larger budget and more prestigious cast than you'd expect from a movie released by RKO. After all, RKO was clearly a second-tier studio whose output was far lower budgeted than most films from MGM, Twentieth Centure-Fox and Warner Brothers. But here, the studio released a prestige film...with vivid color, a LOT of familiar actors and a plot involving one of the great women of the late Middle Ages. Unfortunately, the public did NOT respond well to this and the film actually lost money. How?
Ingrid Bergman plays the title character and the story consists of her life from her middle teens to her execution at age 19. This is a SERIOUS problem, as when the film began she was about 15-16...and looked like the 33 years she actually was.
The other main problem with the film is that the filmmakers were too reverential towards the character...with dirge-like music and a pace slower than a snail! Telling it faster and with perhaps more behind the scenes intrigues would have helped. Regardless, I just kept wanting the film to speed up...particularly at the end when you KNOW what's going to happen and it takes too long to get there. Well made and nice looking...but also a film that might bore you as well.
By the way, although it didn't impact my viewing, the film was a pet project of Ingrid Bergman but she also was responsible for helping to tank the film. Negative publicity about her affair with a married man became public at about the time the film was released. This very unsaint-like behavior surely must have negatively impacted the box office numbers.
