Beloved Infidel

Firstly I will agree that this isn't the most riveting film ever made, but I will disagree with the reviewer who says that Peck is too handsome to make a believable alcoholic. We know that Fitzgerald was handsome, intelligent and charming, three things which made Peck an excellent choice to play him on film. Furthermore there is a pretty amazing scene where violence erupts between Peck and Kerr, it's truly believable, which heartbreakingly portrayed the depths to which Fitzgerald had sunk. Obviously when the story is based on Sheilah Graham's recollections, it will be purely personal and she may have softened the truth or by the same account exaggerated it. The look of the picture is beautiful, especially the wardrobe for Kerr. I say simply to get a look at two stars in their prime it's worth it to muddle through. Kerr and Peck have a tangible chemistry.

This film purports to be about the last years of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his life with his paramour Sheila Graham as seen through the eyes of Ms. Graham. Sorry, wrong number! Obviously, Ms. Graham remembers through rose colored glasses. Granted, she was there and we were not but this is a very sanitized version of life with a hopeless alcoholic, has-been. Fitzgerald was the darling of the jazz age who, with his unstable wife Zelda, ran rampant through life with a joy for living which set a standard for the time. But he dried up artistically, Zelda was committed to an institution and he took to the bottle with a vengeance. The film begins when he is on his last legs, trying to make it in Hollywood as a screen writer and having an affair with Ms. Graham, a Hollywood gossip columnist. Gregory Peck is just not believable as Fitzgerald. He is not gritty enough, not desperate enough and is just.....well, he is just Gregory Peck, not F. Scott Fitzgerald. Deborah Kerr is so wrong for this part that it is ludicrous. It appears that she was chosen for the role because she had an English accent as did Ms. Graham. Sheila Graham was a kick-ass opportunist (which she had to be to make it in the business) and Kerr is much too genteel and ladylike. I'm sure Ms. Graham loved her man and that her memories (at least some of them) were romantic and wonderful but it is just all too good to be true. Fitzgerald's last days are well known enough to make this film a saccharin fairy tale.

I, for one really love this movie. It has all the elements of a classic movie. Great Actors, Love , Betrayal, And Redemption. When watching don't be over critical. This was produced in the 1950's and all movies of this time are a bit over acted and fanciful. Try to view it for what it is(not a biographical documentary about Sheila Graham and F. Scott Fitzgerald) but a sweeten Hollywood version of their story. Very enjoyable.. Gregory Peck is at his understated best!! Deborah Kerr is very believable as a woman who loves this man despite his problems. This movie is very understated. The scene where Scott hits Sheila and threatens her with the gun is well acted; the violence is not used to make the movie more watchable as it is now a days. It is a film the evokes many different emotions from the viewer. There are the highs of being in love and the lows of despair and fright. It encompasses all. A great film!!!!

Henry King is a master of making a storybook love movie;but when it comes to biography,(with the exception of "the song of Bernadette" which owed a lot to Jennifer Jones)his art becomes ineffective:in spite of two great actors,nothing works here.The scene on the beach where Kerr tells everything ,warts and all, turns up at the most awkward moment:why does she feel compelled to tell the whole truth when things are working so fine for her?Besides,Gregory Peck is much too famous and too "straight" to portray FSF successfully,we never forget he is Gregory Peck:he's so handsome it's impossible to believe he is an out-and-out alcoholic. Oddly,King's swansong the following year was a FS Fitzgerald adaptation, "tender is the night' but Jones had become too old for the part and it was a disappointment.

In 1936, the witty columnist Sheilah Graham (Deborah Kerr) leaves her noble British fiancé and travels in the Queen Mary from Southampton, England, to New York. She seeks out the editor of the North American Newspaper Alliance John Wheeler (Philip Ober) offering her services but he sends her to the Daily Mirror. Sheilah becomes successful and John offers a job position in Hollywood to write gossips about the stars. When Sheilah meets the decadent writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (Gregory Peck), they immediately fall in love for each other. Sheilah discovers that Scott is accepting any job to write screenplay to financially support his wife Zelda that is in asylum and his daughter that is in a boarding school. She opens her heart to him and tells the truth about her origins; but their relationship is affected by the drinking problem of Scott.

"Beloved Infidel" is a melodramatic soap-opera based on the true romance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sheilah Graham along the last four years of the life of the American writer. However, the screenplay is based on the book written by Sheilah Graham that is pictured as an angel that helps the decadent and cruel drunkard. I do not know the biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald but this version is shallow and not independent. Gregory Peck is weak in the dramatic parts and the lovely Deborah Kerr is too sweet even when insulted considering the profile of the controversial reporter Sheilah Graham, considered a bitch by the industry. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Ídolo de Cristal" ("The Crystal Idol")