Adam und Evelyne

It all basically began with Adam and Eve. We've seen the young, innocent girl maturing into the young lady and falling in love with the older man in "My Fair Lady," and "Gigi." This is basically the same story in "Adam and Evelynne."

When Stewart Granger's friend dies, he takes his daughter in. The latter, Jean Simmons, believes that Granger is his father until she is told otherwise by Granger's girlfriend who senses Simmons as future competition. That sense proves correct when Simmons returns from finishing school in Switzerland all grown up. Problem is that Granger has never told her his true vocation: illegal gambling.

The story unfolds how they fall in love and the eventual treachery of his girlfriend and younger brother to destroy him over this love.

The film is nicely done. Jean Simmons goes from an unhappy child, looking for her father to the mature young woman searching for love.

Stewart Granger was 16 years older than Jean Simmons when they married in 1950, so they had real life chemistry together in this 1949 film as mature man (Adam) having a relationship with a beautiful girl (Evelyne).The plot has already been outlined by other user comments so I will merely comment on the time and direction.

As someone who was born in 1946, 1949 was, for most of us, a year in Britain of food rationing, burdensome post war taxes and austerity.Shots of people drinking champagne, drinking and eating in nightclubs, buying expensive clothes and driving expensive cars were a million miles away from most Britons life experiences then.It is only in recent history that gambling has been legalised and it is worth reminding viewers that in 1949 this practise could be prosecuted hence the film's depiction of illicit gambling in private homes.

The relationships of ex-service personnel in the post war period could be strong if they had previously shared privation together during the war in a life inter depending culture.This fact is clearly shown by Adam's steadfast friendship with his Irish jockey comrade who has secretly sired a beautiful daughter (Evelyne) who now resides in an orphanage.Adam and his Irish war friend share a mutual love of horse racing (and gambling) which keeps their friendship current with a strong bond of loyalty between them.The morality of the 1940s meant people could not be seen to be escaping the consequences of the law and a racing scam cooked up between them goes tragically wrong and the Irish jockey loses his life while racing.With his last breath he asks Adam to look after his daughter.A previous reviewer predicted the film's outcome but it is still enjoyable seeing how the characters finish.The mature divorcée who wants to marry Adam (while using her flat for gambling) is in for a bitter disappointment but so is Adam when she tips off Adam's ne'er-do-well younger brother, out of female spite, when she realises she cannot compete in the emotional stakes with the beautiful 20 year old Jean Simmons, when they give the police a tip off about illegal gambling.

There is a nice cameo performance about morality from Wilfrid Hyde White who explains to Evelyne that heroes often come with clay feet.Enjoyable with competent direction in B&W. I rated it 6/10/

Stewart Granger seldom spoke with affection of his movies, but this he spoke glowingly of as "a charming light comedy". Doubtless his mellow recall of this engaging trifle was due to the offscreen rapport he was developing offscreen with his radiant young co-star (they were married the following year), who gracefully matures onscreen from an innocent young waif who inquires "What's a hangover?" to a young woman by losing her beret, having her hair shortened and discovering champagne. And men.

One would think how fresh and unspoilt Simmons was in this; but she never lost the glow with which she was still lighting up the screen twenty years later.

Eh, to each his own. It was an okay film, but honestly, I find the way Evlyne so swiftly went from thinking that Adam was her father to being romantically in-love with him rather disturbing. I get that the heart wants what the heart wants and all that, but in my humble opinion, this is one case where it would have been better to keep it a father-daughter relationship. Once Evelyn found out the truth, Adam could have just said that it doesn't matter, because he'll be her honorary father, and that would have been sweet and noble. But, the way the story develops takes that away in a sense, and it feels a trite incestuous to me.

Adam And Evelyn is a strange, but charming film about a man who put his daughter in an orphanage and went off to war. Never having seen his daughter for reasons the script does not make clear, he impersonates a good friend from the army, a gambler with a way with the ladies.

The gambler is Stewart Granger and the girl is Jean Simmons and this strange love story was concocted for the two of them who were in a hot and heavy affair at the time. What didn't work for Ronald Reagan and Shirley Temple in That Hagen Girl or for Herbert Marshall and Simone Simon in Girl's Dormitory does work here. I'm guessing the skill of the players or a better script or both. You decide if you watch the movie.

Simmons leaves the orphanage and comes to live with Granger and the two become attracted. Of course at some point Granger has to disabuse of the notion he's really her father. And then when that happens people start talking. He's also been seeing on and off Helen Cherry who was Mrs. Trevor Howard in real life and she's not liking seeing Jean poaching on territory she staked out.

Granger and Simmons went on to get married and make to more films for MGM in America. One of them, Young Bess casts her as young Queen Elizabeth I and Granger as Thomas Seymour the much older admiral who tried to take advantage of then Princess Elizabeth to further his ambitions. He and the whole family came to a sorry end. In a way Young Bess is a dark version of Adam And Evelyn.

Not the best film for either of the stars, but their fans should like it.