Siempre te amaré

I count my blessings that I have learned to stay away from Deborah Kerr movies except out of morbid fascination with what moviegoers could possibly have seen in her.

I count my blessing that the PVR makes it possible to record bad movies, zip through the terrible parts, stop, delete, and then move on to better movies, most not starring Deborah Kerr.

I count my blessings that for all its failings, Hollywood has consistently made far, far better movies than the British.

Oh, the movie: Kerr is a frigid soccer mom, from what I can see. Some Italian guy I've never heard of plays the French husband. They have all the chemistry of oil and vinegar. He goes away. He comes back. They find out they hate each other, or something. I think I fell into an irreversible coma.

Englishwoman gets swept up by a Frenchman during the war. They marry and he is gone nine years. He comes back, meets his son and they encounter his "distraction" during the interim. Their mores clash; they talkety talk and somehow it all comes right in the end.

Not a bad story. Anything can happen in the movies, right? Not this time. It played out that way, but nothing ever "happened" in this. It needed artificial respiration, but never got it. It just comes off artificial.

There are beautiful locations and sets. You think -- surely with Deborah Kerr. You think -- surely with Rossano Brazzi. There are attractiveness and talent available ... But it never connects in this very lame presentation. Brazzi just plods along with the program. Ms. Kerr tries to infuse enthusiasm several times, but, well, I was embarrassed for her. Chevalier approaches it bravely, just chattering along obliviously.

A reviewer excuses the actors and the director, but states "... many inconsequential, unbelievable, and spiritless emotional reactions, even in potentially dramatic situations. There is absolutely no chemistry between the leads." Actually, those elements are all exactly the province of the actors and director. How does a bad script keep actors from having chemistry between them, or from rendering appropriate portrayals? And, isn't the director supposed to be taking the pulse of things as it goes along? Where was he with the pervading false note in this? Was he hampered by the producer or someone else?

While Ms. Kerr is a gifted, beautiful and enduring actress, she doesn't pull it off every time. She can over-emote and requires some rein on that. Brazzi seems about the same in everything. No doubt, he is a gorgeous specimen, but his abilities are such that he can't carry it on his own. They could have both used some able directorial assistance here.

What happened? What didn't happen? Oh well, heed a warning and spare yourself. If you do, you can count that a blessing.

This one is a really bad movie. The only positive remark that I can make about it is: I like Deborah Kerr, and she is acting in it.

The script is a pure disaster: The story does not work because of the many inconsequential, unbelievable, and spiritless emotional reactions, even in potentially dramatic situations. There is absolutely no chemistry between the leads. Instead we are bored by much talking in stupid, meaningless dialogs throughout the plot.

I think it would be unjust to say anything about the actor's performances here. The defect that is caused by such a bad script cannot be neutralized or even compensated by the best actors in the world. Nor is this possible for the director or the cinematographer, who appear to have done a solid job.

Rossano Brazzi plays the most arrogant man in the world in Count Your Blessings. He meets Deborah Kerr, and even though she's engaged to a fellow soldier, he actively tries to wear her down and seduce her even when she repeatedly refuses his advances. His excuse? It's wartime, and the other man "left his side unguarded." Removing the ridiculous casting decision to pick an Italian actor as a Frenchman, assuming that American audiences couldn't tell the difference between Rossano's accent and Maurice Chevalier's-who plays his father-accent, the movie is still ridiculous.

It's made extremely obvious from the get-go that the only connection Rossano and Deborah have is in the bedroom, but they get married anyway. They bicker constantly, disagree on major life issues, and suffer from culture shock at each other's attitudes. And to top it all off, before they have the chance to enjoy a honeymoon, Rossano is captured and Deborah is left pregnant and alone. She waits for years-yes, that's right, years-for him to return, and raises a son alone. She's wasted her youth and pines away for a man she only knew for a few days, and when he finally returns, they're faced with the same old problems. He's an unfaithful jerk, there's a culture clash, they don't really like each other, he's not sympathetic towards his son-but the moment they're left alone in the bedroom, all is right with the world. How are we supposed to root for this romance?

Even the title sends the wrong message to the audience! When absolutely everything is wrong with in a relationship, you should "count your blessings" and only focus on the one physical aspect that keeps you together? Well, if you subscribe to that theory, you might actually like this movie. As it is, I'm past my teens, so I have the life experience to know that the main message of the movie is wrong. I hated this movie. If there was even one more connection between the two leads, I'd have given it more leniency, but they were so incredibly ill-suited for one another! I'll leave you with one of Rossano's lines, so you can fully understand his awful character: "You must always smile at women. If they're pretty, it gives you pleasure. If they're not pretty, it gives them pleasure, and you have the satisfaction of having done a good deed."

I give this a 6/10 because it is not boring and because I am an easy grader. I was so confounded by the script I could not be bored.

First off, why is Rossano Brazzi playing a Frenchman? But that is the least of this film's problems. At first I thought I was watching a movie about a war ravaged romance (Kerr as an English woman and Brazzi as a French officer during WWII). Then I thought I was watching a movie about a British woman forced to deal with the stresses of surviving a war alone while raising her young fatherless son. After that I thought I was watching a movie about a reunited culturally blended family attempting to make a go of it after nine years of estrangement. I couldn't be more wrong.

This turned out to be a movie about hypocritical counseling from one French philanderer about another. As the "wise" uncle-counselor, Maurice Chevalier rationalizes to the despondent and confused Miss Kerr about her husband, his nephew; "you married a Frenchman. You cannot make him into an Englishman or an American . . . If you want to be happy you have to think like a Frenchwoman". With that Deborah Kerr responds with the only logical response in the movie; "we'll it seems as if I'm expected to do all the changing. It's a bit one sided don't you think? And why can't marriage change both husband and wife? . . ." And the scene that sums it all up; as his son watches on, Rossano Brazzi unapologetically ogles Parisian beauties for his offspring to observe.

What is Brazzi doing? At first it seems like he may be maintaining multiple households with multiple wives. But then in one scene with one of them he is just having them take dictation. Is he a bigamist? Is he part of some secret business deal he cannot let his wife in on? Nope, he is just a philanderer on a grand scale. Also it seems like Brazzi and Kerr's characters only have anything in common in the bedroom. They bicker the rest of the time. And the son? Is Kerr sure the dad is not an American? Because the son turns out to be a capitalist extraordinaire. He tries to keep them apart when they separate so that they do not reconcile since he can get much more stuff when they are in a bidding war for his affections.

Recommended for the weirdness of it all. I blame "Around the World in 80 Days". After that film won the Best Picture Oscar in 1956 in spite of just being one long travelogue, lots of films emerged whose producers and directors seemed to think that they could just shoot on location in Europe and put up any kind of drivel as a plot and succeed. This seems to be one of those films.