The Bridge of San Luis Rey

steals the film. Too bad the film is an el cheapo production of the Thornton Wilder novel. Lynn Bari gets a rare starring role with Louis Calhern, Akim Tamiroff, Francis Lederer, Joan Lorring, Blanche Yurka, and Donald Woods rounding out the cast. Bari is game and quite good in some scenes but she can't hold this film together. Nazimova, a great silent star of the teens and 20s, easily steals every scene she's in. The climactic finale is really disappointing and ruins whatever good will the film as accumulated up to that point. Still worth seeing for Nazimova and Bari.

This adaptation of a great writer's novel falls far short of its intentions. It's hoity-toity without being either profound or risible.

Akim Tamiroff makes quite some Peruvian sage! I got a kick out of his comments on "the wiceroy," sounding for all the world like my own late Russian grandfather.

Lynn Bari doesn't have the flair for the femme fatale around whom the plot is built. The character is the Bizet/Merimee Carmen set in the land of Offenbach's "La Perichole." She is indeed called by that name. But the plots are dissimilar and we sure do miss the music.

Francis Lederer was a handsome and appealing actor and he is fine as her love interest. Alla Nazimova is good as the noblewoman who schemes to thwart her.

The movie seems to have spent all its money on rights to the novel and on some of the supporting players. It's low budget and what comes through of Wilder's philosophy is so watered down as to be meaningless.

Paulette Godard was in Renoir's American production of "The Diary of a Chambermaid" right around this time. The budget may not have been higher but the director was one of the very greatest and Goddard was perfect as the crafty title character. Indeed, I prefer that movie to Bunuel's later, more famous and highly regarded one.

"San Luis Rey" could have worked. But it doesn't.

Really stagy, over acted, over lit, over music'd with almost constant strings. Could have been so much better. Almost painful to watch and I usually love old B&W movies. The combination of the bad lighting and unbelievably almost non-existent creativity in choosing camera positions make whatever abilities the actors had virtually invisible.

The first half hour of the 1944 adaptation of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize- winning novel is excruciatingly dull even with a rope bridge over an Andean

abyss collapsing. Uncomfortable with an eschatological question posted to him by a bystander peastant, priest Donald Woods sets out to find out more about

the five people who were on the bridge when it collapsed. Most of the rest of the movie (until a reprise that shows who was on the bridge in an exceedingly

phony studio-set disaster) recalls the career and would-be-lovers of a singer, Micaela (Lynn Bari), born poor, trained by impresario Uncle Pio (Akim Tamiroff) and vied for by the viceroy (Louis Calhern) and a ship captain (Francis Lederer). Except for the scenes with both of the suitors and a comical training of Micaela in swooning, the movie is dull and the whole is uncinematic, including the

framing disaster sequences. The scenes are overlit, the sets and dialog artificial, the music and cinematography uninspiring. Lynn Bari was devoid of mystery or

charisma (and given far too much screen time), and a ridiculously pat

Hollywood happy ending was substituted for Wilder's. Nazimova is wasted,

though Calhern, Lederer, and Tamiroff breathe occasional life into the

proceedings.

Father Juniper witnessed the death of five people who were using an ancient bridge in South America in the 18th century. It left him wondering why a loving God would allow this to happen (as well as why He'd allow a movie like "The Bridge of San Luis Rey"). So, he spends the film investigating their lives--to see if it's all some part of God's divine plan.

While the plot is unique, it's amazing how dull the film is. In fact, repeatedly I found my mind straying as I tried to watch. At first I thought maybe it was me--I was tired. But as I tried watching the next day, it just seemed interminably dull. Much of it was the plot and much of it was the insipid direction as you never really SEE anything happening. In addition, I noticed that the film, at times, looked kind of cheap--such as the poorly painted background when the film began. Easy to skip.

By the way, if you do watch, look for Stymie Beard (from "Our Gang") in a bit part as a young servant in a wig.