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La vie passionnée des soeurs Brontë

Original title: Devotion
  • 1946
  • Tous publics
  • 1h 47m
IMDb RATING
6.6/10
1.1K
YOUR RATING
Paul Henreid and Ida Lupino in La vie passionnée des soeurs Brontë (1946)
Ida Lupino and Olivia de Havilland star in this film romance centered on literary siblings Emily and Charlotte Bronte. The authors of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre clash over the affections of a local pastor (Paul Henreid), while their sister Anne (Nancy Coleman) attempts to aid their afflicted brother, Branwell (Arthur Kennedy). With Sidney Greenstreet as William Makepeace Thackeray.
Play trailer1:53
1 Video
86 Photos
BiographyDramaMystery

Genius authors Emily and Charlotte Brontë fall in love with their curate as they seek to get their work published.Genius authors Emily and Charlotte Brontë fall in love with their curate as they seek to get their work published.Genius authors Emily and Charlotte Brontë fall in love with their curate as they seek to get their work published.

  • Director
    • Curtis Bernhardt
  • Writers
    • Keith Winter
    • Theodore Reeves
    • Edward Chodorov
  • Stars
    • Olivia de Havilland
    • Ida Lupino
    • Paul Henreid
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.6/10
    1.1K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Curtis Bernhardt
    • Writers
      • Keith Winter
      • Theodore Reeves
      • Edward Chodorov
    • Stars
      • Olivia de Havilland
      • Ida Lupino
      • Paul Henreid
    • 33User reviews
    • 7Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    Official Trailer
    Trailer 1:53
    Official Trailer

    Photos86

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    Top cast45

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    Olivia de Havilland
    Olivia de Havilland
    • Charlotte Brontë
    • (as Olivia DeHavilland)
    Ida Lupino
    Ida Lupino
    • Emily Brontë
    Paul Henreid
    Paul Henreid
    • Rev. Arthur Nicholls
    Sydney Greenstreet
    Sydney Greenstreet
    • William Makepeace Thackeray
    Nancy Coleman
    Nancy Coleman
    • Anne Brontë
    Arthur Kennedy
    Arthur Kennedy
    • Branwell Brontë
    May Whitty
    May Whitty
    • Lady Thornton
    • (as Dame May Whitty)
    Victor Francen
    Victor Francen
    • Constantin Heger
    Montagu Love
    Montagu Love
    • Rev. Brontë
    Ethel Griffies
    Ethel Griffies
    • Aunt Elizabeth Branwell
    Hartney J. Arthur
    • Man
    • (uncredited)
    Billy Bevan
    Billy Bevan
    • Mr. Ames
    • (uncredited)
    Edmund Breon
    Edmund Breon
    • Sir John Thornton
    • (uncredited)
    Tanis Chandler
    Tanis Chandler
    • French Student
    • (uncredited)
    Micheline Cheirel
    Micheline Cheirel
    • Mlle. Blanche
    • (uncredited)
    Wallis Clark
    Wallis Clark
    • Mr. George Smith
    • (uncredited)
    David Clyde
    David Clyde
    • Land Agent
    • (uncredited)
    Harry Cording
    Harry Cording
    • Coachman with Frightened Horses
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Curtis Bernhardt
    • Writers
      • Keith Winter
      • Theodore Reeves
      • Edward Chodorov
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews33

    6.61.1K
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    Featured reviews

    dougdoepke

    Dig Those Moody Moors

    The literary Bronte sisters struggle to get their lives in order in the midst of a dour old house, a severe father, and moody rolling moors.

    These Gothic costume dramas usually show the old studios hitting on all eight cylinders. Just check out the exterior sets here. It's obviously not the real outdoors the sisters hike along. But who cares because they're so artistically done—the crags, the waterfall, the hilly moors. They're all real eye-catchers, establishing just the right Gothic mood. Warner's production crews did a bang-up job, showing that you don't need digital to get the right effect.

    Of course, I like anything with the great Ida Lupino. Here she does more of a hardened type than the soft, dreamy types of High Sierra (1941) or Deep Valley (1947). But that too is okay since her real feelings are kept below the surface, which we only detect now and again. It's fitting that the depth of those feelings finally surface in Emily's (Lupino) great romantic novel Wuthering Heights, and smoldering they are.

    Speaking of romance, I really can't see the girls getting all hot and bothered over a couple of stiffs like Henreid and Francen, especially Francen who acts like someone's randy old grandfather. But you do have to hand it to Arthur Kennedy. He gets to pull out all stops as the self-destructive Branwell, managing to make a drunken scene wherever he goes. As a result and thanks to him, I'll think twice about my next beer.

    All in all, it takes about 90-moody minutes for the sisters to straighten things out. But in the meantime they've given me a number of memorable scenes that have lasted for years since I first saw the movie. Yes indeed, there's a lot to be said for those old Hollywood dream factories.
    8dougandwin

    Well done drama but not too correct historically

    The story of the Bronte Family with all their problems certainly bears little resemblance to the true facts, but nevertheless Warner Brothers have made a fine entertaining film, with an excellent cast of actors headed by Olivia de Havilland as Charlotte, Ida Lupino as Emily and Nancy Coleman as Anne. Paul Henreid is in support, but Arthur Kennedy as Branwell is the standout. The mood of the time and place is very well captured and the photography and background music are superb. Not a lot of emphasis is given to the wonderful books, "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" by Emily & Charlotte, but rather the main story revolves around the girls' love lives. This film has been panned by many critics, but I feel it deserves a far better reception than it has received - Warners had themselves to blame as they delayed its release for a couple of years simply because of the fight with Miss de Havilland - incidentally she won it!
    SHAWFAN

    One of the wittiest screenplays ever written

    All your other reviewers filled me in on the accuracy or inaccuracy of the movie's biographical storyline. And unfortunately I missed the first part of the movie when it was presented on TCM the other day. But once into it I was immediately struck by the magnificent acting of all the principals and the dramatic richness of Korngold's score.

    But the thing that really sets this movie apart is the actual script itself. I can count on one hand the movies I have seen with a literate script as good as a fine play and this was one of them. Writers Theodor Reeves and Keith Winter have been unknown names to me up to now and they don't have extensive filmographies. I would certainly like to find more of their work. As the literary and well-formed ripostes and counterthrusts bounce from one character to another and as the priceless bonmots sparkle forth from Greenstreet's Thackeray I thought I was at a play by Shaw or Oscar Wilde. Greenstreet was much under-appreciated I thought by your other reviewers. His entertaining and witty part was really the best in the movie.

    As a typical example of the quality of the script are Arthur Kennedy's words as Branwell lies dying in his sister's arms. Having collapsed in the street on his way to the tavern he comments that his collapses usually occur on his way home from the tavern, not on his way there.

    I saw a recent version of Jane Eyre the other day on public television, the first time I had seen a film of it. I've never seen the one from the early 1940s. I was struck by the resemblances to Dickens' David Copperfield and Nicholas Nickleby and how Charlotte Bronte established herself here as a female Dickens.

    One could easily become devoted to Devotion. A splendid movie.
    emuir-1

    A rarely seen enjoyable film

    Although not historically accurate, this is a very enjoyable romantic view of the Bronte sisters and their devotion to each other and to their drug addicted brother. I am surprised that it has not been shown as often as the overwrought versions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering heights which were made around that time.

    The performances are excellent, even more so because they are quietly underplayed for the times. The attention to detail is good, except for the scene where Charlotte returned to find Emily on her deathbed but left the front door wide open! Growing up on the Yorkshire moors about 10 miles away from Haworth, I know that no one would ever leave the door open on a cold stormy night. I kept wanting to shout in Yorkshire dialect "Put t'wood in't hoile!" (Shut the door, in English)

    The Bronte sisters have been the subject of vastly more scholarly print than their combined output, but this film skims over the heartbreak and hardship they endured. One has to see the bleakness of the Haworth parsonage and the moors to begin to grasp what it must have been like for them. Death was a constant companion, taking all of them away in their early adulthood. Death from drink, tubercolosis and in Charlotte's case, childbirth, were the norm for those who survived infancy. Their lives were bleak, but their imagination was rich.

    Picky picky details aside, this films deserves to be shown more often.
    7blanche-2

    Fictionalized account of the Bronte sisters

    Ida Lupino is Emily Bronte, and Olivia de Havilland is Charlotte Bronte in "Devotion," a 1946 film, made in 1943 and shelved, which tells the story of the two sisters, their sister Anne, and their brother Branwell (Arthur Kennedy).

    In essence, the Bronte sisters led sad, miserable, and short lives - there was nothing romantic about the moors, as much as they seem so in the Bronte books. The sisters enjoyed poor health, their brother was a disgrace, and their father a cold man with a violent temper.

    Only with the entrance of their aunt into their lives was much attention paid to them. She was a warm woman who saw to their education and gave them structure.

    What the Bronte sisters had was imagination, and plenty of it, and they exercised their imaginations with their writings.

    "Devotion" is a lovely film with a wonderful performance by Ida Lupino as the tragic Emily. Olivia de Havilland does a good job as Charlotte, shown in the film as selfish and a man magnet.

    In truth, she was ugly and considered herself so, and while she did develop a crush on Constantin Heger (Victor Francen), the affection doesn't seem to have been returned.

    All of Charlotte's success happened after Emily's death, not where it does in the film, and the reason the girls left school was not because of their brother's illness, but because of their aunt's death.

    The eternally underrated Arthur Kennedy is excellent as Branwell, shown here as only a drunk. Branwell did have several jobs, none of which he kept, had an affair with an older married woman, which was an open scandal, and is suspected of eating opium as well as drinking. However, it is true that Charlotte was angry with him.

    Charlotte did marry Nicholls (and died eight months later) but there was no love triangle with Emily. Nor was Nicholls, as in the film, the model for the mysterious, romantic men in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The fact that this love triangle is represented as inspiration for the men in their novels in "Devotion" is a good case for Paul Henried being miscast.

    The movie was made during the war, when there were no men around, and Warner Brothers would never have given a star like Errol Flynn a supporting role. But the role of Nicholls, given his importance in the film, cried out for someone a little more dashing and handsome.

    Sydney Greenstreet appears as William Thackery in a small but showy role toward the end of the film.

    The film was shelved in 1943 because of a lawsuit filed by Olivia de Havilland against Warner Brothers; in 1946, though she won the suit, the movie was released due to the big success of her film, "To Each His Own" for Paramount.

    "Devotion" is worth seeing, but not as a true story of the Bronte sisters.

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    Storyline

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    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Warners initially tried to borrow Joan Fontaine for Emily Brontë so she could play opposite her real-life sister Olivia de Havilland, but when an agreement couldn't be reached, the part was played by Warner contractee Ida Lupino.
    • Goofs
      When Emily enters her brother's sickroom and doesn't completely shut its door, a hand and arm very obviously reach out from outside the room and shuts it.
    • Quotes

      Charlotte Bronte: I know nothing. I understand nothing. And yet, I have dared to write 200,000 words about life!

      [tosses manuscript on floor]

    • Crazy credits
      Dame May Whitty's name is spelled incorrectly in the opening credits. It is spelled as follows - "Dame Mae Whitty" - using the spelling the same way that Mae West spelled her name, (with an E, and not a Y). This is a terrible blunder for such a highly respected actress.
    • Connections
      Featured in Between Two Worlds: Erich Wolfgang Korngold (2005)
    • Soundtracks
      Tempo di menuetto
      from the "Septet in E-flat, Op. 20"

      Written by Ludwig van Beethoven

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • September 3, 1947 (France)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Languages
      • English
      • French
    • Also known as
      • Devoción
    • Filming locations
      • Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA(Studio)
    • Production company
      • Warner Bros.
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 47 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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