Vanessa - Seu Drama de Amor

SPOILER: This movie, now rated TV-PG, was shown as part of a kids matinee double bill at Peoples, a neighborhood theater in Dayton, Ohio, in 1935 or '36, to an audience whose average age was maybe 9.5 years. Though I was a year or two older, I didn't understand it. (I don't think I knew about adultery, for one thing.) It must have made an impression, because I remembered the theme that the woman couldn't divorce her insane husband to marry the man of her dreams. (I also remembered the theme song, "John Peel," but thought it was from another movie.) As part of my current movie viewing hobby, I enjoy finding these old latent memory pics, no matter how bad, and revisiting them. This one isn't all that bad. Poor Vanessa gets herself married to a man she really doesn't care much about, and when Mr. Right becomes available, the situation drives her unstable husband over the edge. Under Victorian British law, she cannot divorce a person who is insane, so she's stuck. Her "innocent" association (??? -- It must have been; these were the days of "the Code") with her true love caused local scandal, and she finally had to return to her husband and wait for him to die. In the end, however, she and her lover wind up singing "John Peel (with his coat so gay ...)" while watching the sun set over their favorite mountain. Actually a fairly good film, but not for 11-year-olds, even today.

Vanessa is an amazing film. Every actor is pitch perfect, the production values are top draw, yet the film fails to entertain. We have an opera with full audience, a garden party with hundreds, a horse parade with thousands, a fort in Egypt, mansions in various locations. This might have been MGM's most expensive film of 1935. We have Helen Hayes, perfect in the role as loving, long suffering, and duty bound. Her scenes with Otto Kruger are exceptional. Few pairings have been more affecting. I've written of Kruger's ability to do any acting task. Here he succeeds brilliantly. Montgomery is usually is a bit shallow for my taste. Here he is properly wild and stalwart. The rest of the cast is populated by wonderful character actors, doing their jobs particularly well, especially May Robson and Henry Stevenson. The large cast includes several favorites, including Violet Kemble Cooper, Ethel Griffies, and Lionel Belmore. Since everyone does their job so well, we must credit the director, William K. Howard, with an excellent job. Checking his filmography, I see no outstanding films, but a few good ones. It is difficult to imagine that MGM would entrust such a prestigious and expensive film to his care. And yet, the film ultimately disappoints. This is clearly the fault of the screen play. For a company like MGM to approve it, reflects badly on the studio. Of course, I'll watch it again, but only to see Hayes and Kruger working so brilliantly together.

This film starts off with the 100th birthday of the matriarch of the Herries family, which traces its origin back to "Rogue" Herries in the 1700s, who sounds like some kind of William Wallace character with a very wild streak. The matriarch (Madame Judith Paris played by May Robson) talks about how every now and again another rogue is born into this now respectable family. Cue the late entry to the party of dashing Benjamin Herries (Robert Montgomery) as that implied spiritual heir of Rogue Herries, also cue the figure of Vanessa Paris, Judith's granddaughter,, looking like her heart just leapt in her chest.

So Benjamin and Vanessa are in love, but Benjamin wants a year to travel the world and get that wild streak out of him before settling down. Distant cousin Ellis Herries (Otto Kruger) is in love with Vanessa and is the settled type who can offer her a lifetime of security and boredom. So Benjamin returns a year later, and he and Vanessa agree to marry, and this is when the parade of tragedy tropes begin to occur.

Some of the tragedies are foreseeable, some are downright predictable, but then the oddball ones begin to pile on to the point that the entire thing becomes ridiculous. Two things really stand out as not ridiculous but rather weird. The first one is Guinness Book of World Records weird. May Robson is playing a woman of 100 in the late 19th century when this film starts. It is not said exactly, but I count about 15 years passing, and yet the woman is still alive at the end, walking on her own power, and in complete control of her mental faculties. The second one - I guess you'd just have to be British. There is everybody just fawning over and falling over one another at just the appearance of any British royal - Prince Edward and Queen Victoria in particular. Oh well, I guess if you spent the latter part of the 20th century watching "Windsors behaving badly" it does just not seem such a big deal to see somebody whose claim to fame is nothing more than exiting the right birth canal.

What saves this one? The acting skills of the fiery Robson, the dashing Robert Montgomery, and the versatile Hayes in particular, and the strength of the supporting cast of MGM stalwarts in general. I also liked how the film did not try to falsely paint Helen Hayes, primarily a stage actress, as some kind of great beauty. Montgomery, towards the end, as Benjamin, actually states that it is not that Vanessa (Hayes' character) is beautiful, it is just that overall she has a unique kind of loveliness.

This is probably a take it or leave it proposition for most people, but if you are a Robert Montgomery completist as I am, you'll probably want to see it once.

"Vanessa, Her Love Story" is a bad film and I can understand why Helen Hayes took a break from movies after making this one. Despite a lush look and wonderful cast, the script is simply a mess...seldom making sense and offering little of interest.

The film begins at the Harries family matriarch's 100th birthday. This is odd, as through the course of most of the film the old lady thrives and she must be nearly 110 by the end of the movie...perhaps even older!! At the celebration you meet the main characters--Benjamin (Robert Montgomery), Vanessa (Hayes) and Ellis (Otto Kruger). Benjamin is a bit of a wild guy and although he wants to marry Vanessa, he wants to sow a few more wild oats and they agree to marry....later. However, just before their wedding, Vanessa's father has a heart attack and accidentally sets the house ablaze. Benjamin arrives to save her but it's too late for the father. Inexplicably, Vanessa blames Benjamin for the fire and tells him she never wants to see him again. All of this is 100% illogical.

Benjamin leaves and soon marries a woman who is unfaithful. He then joins the army and loses an arm. When he returns, he finds Vanessa has married Ellis...a hopelessly paranoid and insane guy whose family hid this from Vanessa. She is miserable, Benjamin is miserable and Ellis constantly assumes his wife is cheating on him and plots to kill her. What happens from here on, see the movie....but I wouldn't bother. The bottom line is that the film looks nice but the plot is hopelessly convoluted and bizarre...and quite syrupy sweet to the point of annoyance.

The lead players really make this one work. Without Robert Montgomery and Helen Hayes topping the cast Vanessa Her Love Story could have been one weary and dreary Victorian melodrama. For Hayes except for a brief appearance in Stage Door Canteen in 1943, this film marked her farewell to Hollywood and her return to Broadway until the mid 50s.

Montgomery and Hayes seem destined for the altar when a family tragedy for Hayes disrupts their engagement. Montgomery marries barmaid Agnes Anderson who dies along with their child.

Hayes marries Otto Kruger whom she discovers carries madness in his genetics. Montgomery loses an arm, it's hinted that it's in the Sudan with the presence of a young Lord Kitchener in the cast. That finishes him for the service.

Back in the United Kingdom the two rediscover each other but Kruger won't let her go. The two become a notorious item.

Interesting that the three principal cast members of this film are not British. Montgomery and Hayes are Americans and Kruger is from South Africa. The rest of the cast is divided equally between British and non-British players. Of course with Henry Stephenson playing the chronicler of all the events of this story this IS a British story. He's usually the kind of civilized fellow the British like to see themselves as. He's the character of Hugh Walpole, the novelist who wrote the book this film is based on.

Montgomery and Hayes make it all work somehow. I doubt will see a remake of Vanessa Her Love Story, way too old fashioned for today's taste.