Rappaccini's Daughter

A Romeo and Juliet story, where a student who has just moved to Italy, falls in love with a girl whose father is a scientist and gave her a life essence of poison. The movie is about how this student becomes poisoned and ends up killing her and ruining the rest of his life.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story forms the basis for this telefilm originally shot in Puerto Rico, my guess would be in Old San Juan. The location serves for both 18th century architecture and for the tropical flora and fauna that Dr. Rappaccini is raising as well as the lovely Kathleen Beller who plays the title role in Rappaccini's Daughter.

There is a curious symbiotic relationship between a deadly plant raised in this tropical garden and Dr. Rappaccini's offspring. Rappaccini is played by Leonardo Cimino and he's a noted botanist residing in Padua where if you remember Petruccio came to wive it wealthily in. His prize garden is beautiful, but no animal life goes there it means death.

Into the world that Rappaccini and his daughter live in comes a young student Kristoffer Tabori who takes lodging overlooking the garden and sees Beller who never leaves the grounds. After that Tabori's hormones take over even though certain things he sees bother his nagging curiosity.

The sound was not particularly good on this film, but the location photography was. Puerto Rico really did pass for 18th century Padua very well. The performances were sincere and faithful to the Hawthorne story. Even with sub par sound I'd still recommend seeing this film.

A classic story. A beautiful actress. Professional crew. All these things should add up to an excellent film. Sadly, in the case, all this help couldn't save this film. The acting is wooden beyond belief. (Watch Warhol's Dracula for another good example of this) Kathleen Beller is wonderful to look at, but it seems like she's reading from cue cards the entire time. It's stagey, melodramatic and gives TV films a bad name. Too bad, really - it's intent was to be used for educational purposes!

One good thing besides the acting, is the appearance in the beginning by Henry Fonda, who narrates an introduction. Knowing that he wouldn't be around much longer after that (shortly before his "Golden Pond" masterpiece) makes it poignant.

While Kathleen Beller goes a good job as Beatrice (love the Italian "Bee-aah-tra-shay" pronunciation), and Kristoffer Tabori is equally good as the mesmerized Giovanni, the story doesn't seem to succeed in reaching your emotions, even when it comes to the tragic ending. When Giovanni first discovers the strange purplish marks on his wrist after Beatrice touched him, for example, you should feel some shock or horror, instead it comes across as if he had a small scratch, no big deal. The whole story comes across that way, despite all the "Garden of Eden" similarities, and other interpretations.

I think it's better just to read the story.

A young man falls in love with the daughter of a scientist, only to find out that the scientist's darkest experiment was on his own daughter. Her love moves her to save the young man, with tragic consequences. Very well done adaption of the story.