Orgulho e Ódio

The film is much too short .A melodrama demands lavish details ,mainly when it deals with a "forbidden" past.Here Gardner's grandma's racy past is only skimmed over.Her relationship with Mitchum -not convincing as a professor-makes me think of a poor man' s "Jezebel" .And Mitchum's character's attitude does not make much sense when he come s back with a wife.Besides the ending I-hope-she-will -mend-her-ways is unworthy of a great melodrama :never Sirk,Stahl , Minnelli or Wyler would have ended one of their works that way.Ava Gardner is for me the most beautiful actress that has ever been but there are so many works to remember her,better than this one!

MY FORBIDDEN PAST does not full its punches. It is a full-blooded melodrama set in a time and place where social distinctions matter. Barbara Beaurevel (Ava Gardner) and her cousin Paul (Melvyn Douglas) live in comfortable gentility with Aunt Eula (Lucile Watson). They believe in the kind of social niceties that dictate one's choice of marriage partner, as well as one's future life; those who fail to make the grade are abruptly rebuffed. Hence when Barbara falls in love with industrious yet self-made researcher Mark Lucas (Robert Mitchum), trouble is bound to occur. Robert Stevenson's film boils up to a satisfying courtroom climax in which an inevitable deus ex machina allows a happy ending to take place.

Despite the fact that the film remains relentlessly studio-bound (with only a few second unit shots denoting time and place), it makes a creditable effort of portraying a world riddled with hypocrisies, where Lucas is treated with as much disdain as the African American servant (Clarence Muse) working for the Beaurevel family. Douglas makes an eminently hissable villain with his thin pencil mustache and courtly manners, that do not prevent him from making a pass at Lucas' wife (Janis Carter) in a self-interested act of revenge for Lucas' falling in love with Barbara. Mitchum looks uncomfortable in the cloistered surroundings of a research laboratory, but becomes a formidable adversary for Douglas. Gardner doesn't have much to do, except proclaim her love for Lucas in a series of close-ups; this task she accomplishes competently. Given the constraints of her background, we cannot help but sympathize with her as she tries to escape through love.

I enjoyed watching the web of intrigue unfold as a young New Orleans lady in the late 1800's attempts to use her inheritance to regain the man she loves. But there are others who are and have been plotting both for and against her, and her plans go awry. I eagerly watched to learn if the man she loved would suffer for her machinations, or if she would risk her societal position to save him. Unfortunately the ending left me cold, with too many questions left unanswered and with the feeling that Robert Mitchum was miscast in the role of the doctor she loves.

This is a dark, noir, B-movie. If you like the genre you shouldn't miss this one. Gardner is good as the deceitful southern belle, and Mitchum is mysterious and handsome as the doctor. Its not outstanding, but it is intriguing to see the stars together (lovers in real life) and knowing its a rare film makes it all the more interesting. Catch it on the classic movie channel.

This movie is not great. Just how many boring movies did Howard Hughes make? But it does have two of the beautiful and fascinating stars of the Hollywood Golden Age: Ava Gardner and Robert Mitchum. Melvyn Douglas (who doesn't look so good in this) plays Ava's fey playboy cousin. There are a couple of good lines. The plot is slim and the movie is not long. Only 71 minutes, for those with a short attention span.

We're never told exactly what Ava's forbidden past is, but it has to do with her grandmother. Was she a prostitute? Maybe it's supposed to be ambiguous.

The man who directed it made the 1940s "Jane Eyre" with Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine and also the Disney "Mary Poppins."