dkelsey

Although a number of reviews mention the wonderful visual quality of this film, they credit it, if they give any credit at all, to the director or the studio, a symptom, I suppose of the "auteur" approach to film criticism prevalent today.

The credit rightly belongs to cameraman Lee Garmes, who was brilliant at producing images with a romantic lyrical quality, especially when shooting people among foliage.

His work in this field is quite distinctive. Check out another of his masterpieces, "Zoo in Budapest" (1933), if you can find a copy.

This is a straightforward adaptation of Ibsen's stage play, wisely making no attempt to "open out" the action with external scenes, or to "modernise" the action. Its only failure in this respect is having Oswald kiss his mother full on the lips, not once but twice. This hint of Oedipal incest is NOT a part of Ibsen's play.

Dench and Gambon are both excellent, but Freddie Jones steals every scene he is in. Branagh, alas, overacts tiresomely, seemingly believing that he can add dramatic impact to Ibsen's dialogue by shouting it. He is wrong.

. . . how much better it would have been had it been made by Paramount, had starred Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier, and had been directed by Lubitsch or Mamoulian. This British effort makes a stab at the genre, but lacks the necessary vivacity. It is almost as if they were afraid of being saucy, when sauciness was the very essence of the piece. Some of the blame must lie with the casting of the male lead. Victor Varconi is too stolid (one might almost say stodgy) for a role which would have been better played with an air of sans souci. An extended marionette scene is so out of place as to suggest padding, when this sort of plot needs to proceed at a romping pace.