The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Really stagy, over acted, over lit, over music'd with almost constant strings. Could have been so much better. Almost painful to watch and I usually love old B&W movies. The combination of the bad lighting and unbelievably almost non-existent creativity in choosing camera positions make whatever abilities the actors had virtually invisible.

Father Juniper witnessed the death of five people who were using an ancient bridge in South America in the 18th century. It left him wondering why a loving God would allow this to happen (as well as why He'd allow a movie like "The Bridge of San Luis Rey"). So, he spends the film investigating their lives--to see if it's all some part of God's divine plan.

While the plot is unique, it's amazing how dull the film is. In fact, repeatedly I found my mind straying as I tried to watch. At first I thought maybe it was me--I was tired. But as I tried watching the next day, it just seemed interminably dull. Much of it was the plot and much of it was the insipid direction as you never really SEE anything happening. In addition, I noticed that the film, at times, looked kind of cheap--such as the poorly painted background when the film began. Easy to skip.

By the way, if you do watch, look for Stymie Beard (from "Our Gang") in a bit part as a young servant in a wig.

Though this version of The Bridge Of San Luis Rey got an Oscar nomination for Dimitri Tiomkin's musical score, it was like watching half a picture.

The novel is as much about the Brother Juniper character's inquiry into the lives of the six victims who died when the Inca rope bridge broke as it is about their lives. What Donald Woods as Brother Juniper was trying to do was seek for some meaning in the tragedy. Was it dumb luck or was some divine plan in operation?

Years ago Felix Frankfurter who was of Viennese Jewish heritage was quoted as saying that when Chief Justice Fred Vinson died it was the first time he had seen evidence of the existence of God and hence a divine plan. Vinson was wrestling and unsuccessfully with desegregation cases and when Ike appointed Earl Warren as Chief Justice those situations were resolved and the Supreme Court was unanimous in Brown vs. Board of Education which ended segregation. Not too mention a host of other decisions that changed American life. That was what Brother Juniper was trying to determine, was some divine plan in operation? That's a question that is usually filed under the Lord moves in mysterious ways. Trying to see those ways makes you a heretic questioning things best left to the Divine. That's the real story, all Donald Woods becomes here is a chronicler of a tragedy.

Not that some of Thornton Wilder's characters don't have their moments. Louis Calhern makes a crafty Viceroy and he's equally matched by Akim Tamiroff's even craftier official snitch. Lynn Bari was all right in a part that cried for a Rita Hayworth. And Alla Nazimova is a regal countess.

Still Wilder's whole novel was cut in half and the story he was telling went with it.

The first half hour of the 1944 adaptation of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize- winning novel is excruciatingly dull even with a rope bridge over an Andean

abyss collapsing. Uncomfortable with an eschatological question posted to him by a bystander peastant, priest Donald Woods sets out to find out more about

the five people who were on the bridge when it collapsed. Most of the rest of the movie (until a reprise that shows who was on the bridge in an exceedingly

phony studio-set disaster) recalls the career and would-be-lovers of a singer, Micaela (Lynn Bari), born poor, trained by impresario Uncle Pio (Akim Tamiroff) and vied for by the viceroy (Louis Calhern) and a ship captain (Francis Lederer). Except for the scenes with both of the suitors and a comical training of Micaela in swooning, the movie is dull and the whole is uncinematic, including the

framing disaster sequences. The scenes are overlit, the sets and dialog artificial, the music and cinematography uninspiring. Lynn Bari was devoid of mystery or

charisma (and given far too much screen time), and a ridiculously pat

Hollywood happy ending was substituted for Wilder's. Nazimova is wasted,

though Calhern, Lederer, and Tamiroff breathe occasional life into the

proceedings.

I was so curious about Nazimova acting in the forties; I barely managed to get through the beginning of the film without her.

Bari is striking, but it might as well be Hedi Lamarr for all the Peruvian flavor thus imparted.

We can almost slightly believe 'Uncle Pio'

Otherwise, one simply watches this to see the phenomenon of Alla Nazimova as the Marquesa, who obviously only slightly enjoyed playing the horrible bitch and accessed the despicability of the costumes and sets with her Stanislavskian training to invoke bitter.

I was curious to note that Alla came through excellently in sound production. Which begs the question, "What the hell was she doing in the 1930's?"

Alla was clearly waiting to get paid and really deserves top billing over Bari.