Forever Amber

Just watched "Forever Amber" the other night on TCM and it was very riveting! I had seen this movie many many years before, and I do vividly recall the final scene when Amber from her window, was watching Carleton and son leaving for Virginia. The movie from the other night closed abruptly with Amber closing the window and the credits appeared. Something didn't seem right! I remember years ago, Amber getting some kind of invitation from the palace, and she immediately shifted her attention from Carleton and the boy to the royal invitation without another thought to her former lover. That scene defined Amber St.Clair in all its essence.

Overlong, overwrought romantic epic that lacks chemistry between the leads. Linda Darnell is passable as Amber -- if not stunningly talented, then at least gifted with screen presence. But Cornell Wilde is as flat as a wet blanket, dousing the fire out of every scene where it might possibly have ignited. Most errors in movies of this type can be overlooked if the attraction between the two lovers is palpable. Sadly, there is no indication that Wilde's Carlton even likes Amber, let alone finds her alluring. Production code aside, there were plenty of movies of this period that portrayed believable epic love, and this isn't one of them.

The real highlight here is George Sanders as the licentious Charles II, a part he was born to play. I have no doubt that Vincent Price, considered for the role, could have done well (he gave the best performance of his career in another Preminger movie, "Laura"), but Sanders brings so much dripping wit and irony to everything he does that he makes every scene he's in come alive. He's not in it much, however.

The production itself is pretty good, some great costumes and sets. The swordfighting scene (with thankfully little dialogue) was excellent and far too short. The story itself is a little choppy. The first scene was a non-sequitur, promising a potentially interesting plot device that never came. And the ending was a complete disaster - abrupt, unresolved, unbalanced, and worst of all, unsatisfying. Overall, the movie leaves a sour taste in the mouth, as if the decadence that was portrayed somehow got hold of the people making it and caused them to focus more on the image than on the story.

"You've done very well for yourself, Amber."

With this line, Cornell Wilde's character shows himself a master of understatement. It is delivered coldly, with neither criticism nor respect.

FOREVER AMBER is the portrait of a peasant girl who refused to be destroyed by her poverty and the hopeless prospects awaiting her. She used her sexuality and her brains to become the King's consort.

This film presents a vivid portrait of life in England before the Cromwellian revolution. It was an amoral, extremely cynical, heartlessly cruel society.

Linda Darnell's performance is a tour de force. She manages to play the strumpet, while letting the audience see her strength of character shining through all the while. Her love for the fickle Bruce Carlton/Cornell Wilde is too deep for him to ever understand.

One of the most haunting episodes in classic films is the depiction of London in the grip of the Black Plague. Amber risks her life by staying at Bruce's side through his delirium and personally performing the surgery that saves him.

Amber's tragedy is one that every woman who has ever had to fight for herself in this world can recognize. The movie is far more than a period soap opera. In fact, with David Raksin's incredible orchestral score, the production could have provided the framework for the composition of a real opera.... La Boheme, move over!

It's 1644 and Civil War grips England. Baby Amber is found at the doorstep of a puritan family in the countryside. She is the product of a scandal from opposing sides of the war. It's 1660. Oliver Cromwell is dead and the monarchy is restored. Amber (Linda Darnell) refuses an arranged marriage and longs for a high class life. She uses her sex to social climb her way to the top. She follows a group of Royalist led by Lord Bruce Carlton (Cornel Wilde) and his friend Lord Almsbury to London. Her journey would take her to the court of King Charles II. Bruce gets her privateering ship. She gets pregnant and sent to debtors' prison where she joins highwayman Black Jack Mallard. They escape prison and go on their crime spree. Jack is killed and she is rescued by Captain Rex Morgan who introduced her to acting in the theater. That's where she reconnects with Lord Almsbury who is now married with a child. She continues to social climb as she pines for her true love Bruce.

This is based on a period-piece romance novel. The name that caught my eye is director Otto Preminger. It's three years after his stylistic masterpiece Laura. It's the days of the powerful studio head and Zanuck had him under contract. He is given this prestige affair with a big budget. The material is rather scandalous at the time which Zanuck used with the expected censor opposition. It's nothing nowadays and this costume affair seems rather stiff. I don't know much about Linda Darnell. She seems to have a long and varied career with this as one of her highlights. She's beautiful and she's doing some broad acting. This is reminiscent of the style of Gone with The Wind except it is far inferior. It's rather pulpy where the sexual opportunism wears out its salacious welcome. It's compelling enough to watch but I don't find the ambitious Amber to be that appealing.

Somewhat saucy romp has a ravishingly beautiful and amber haired Linda Darnell in the lead full of piquant carnality, lavish costumes and settings and a scene stealing George Sanders as Charles II. What it doesn't have is a lively pace and that to some extent is its undoing. Preminger was the wrong director for a piece of entertainment like this that required a florid touch, Michael Curtiz would have been much more at home at the helm.

The novel this is based on was a notorious but tremendously successful sensation of its day. That book while certainly not "A Great American Novel" is a highly enjoyable piece of pulp fiction full of sex, murder and double crosses in fancy clothes with a complex, very entertaining heroine at its center who has a good heart but is not overly burdened with morals. Unfortunately since they tried to film it in the forties when the Production Code was in full force the more salacious plot points had to be excised. What made it to the screen has its moments but shows the heavy hand of censors most evident in the abrupt ending but scattered throughout the movie. Still a fun romp with Linda giving a spirited performance and for those who haven't read the book a somewhat racy tone.

A troubled production from the beginning what with censorship problems, a recast leading lady, Linda Darnell stepped in after production had started when Peggy Cummings didn't work out and Lana Turner couldn't be borrowed from MGM and a martinet in the director's chair.

There are still a few amusing stories connected to the backstage upheaval that went on. Linda Darnell had worked with Preminger before on Fallen Angel and it had been rough going but she truly came to loathe him during production of Amber. Later while filming A Letter to Three Wives Joseph Mankiewicz needed her to throw a look of disgust at a picture unseen by the audience, to achieve that look he slipped a picture of Preminger into the frame without her knowledge, he got his look.

A small sampling of Preminger's directorial style: after acting out a scene for Linda and Cornel Wilde he screamed at them as they tried to do as he had instructed "Don't do it like I did it! Do it like I meant it!"

One peripheral story: when Ava Gardner was briefly married to Artie Shaw he flew into a rage and berated her when he caught her reading Forever Amber saying it was trash and she should be focusing her attention on things that would enrich her mind, he was that kind of husband. They divorced shortly after and within the year he had married Kathleen Winsor...the author of Forever Amber!