Un matin comme les autres

I, for one really love this movie. It has all the elements of a classic movie. Great Actors, Love , Betrayal, And Redemption. When watching don't be over critical. This was produced in the 1950's and all movies of this time are a bit over acted and fanciful. Try to view it for what it is(not a biographical documentary about Sheila Graham and F. Scott Fitzgerald) but a sweeten Hollywood version of their story. Very enjoyable.. Gregory Peck is at his understated best!! Deborah Kerr is very believable as a woman who loves this man despite his problems. This movie is very understated. The scene where Scott hits Sheila and threatens her with the gun is well acted; the violence is not used to make the movie more watchable as it is now a days. It is a film the evokes many different emotions from the viewer. There are the highs of being in love and the lows of despair and fright. It encompasses all. A great film!!!!

There's one great scene in Beloved Infidel that's so fantastic, it's mind-blowing. Gregory Peck gets drunk and picks a fight with Deborah Kerr, and it escalates into violence. It's the best scene in the movie, and it's the one that will stick with you afterwards. But, unfortunately, the rest of the movie isn't very good.

From the point of view of notorious gossip columnist Sheila Graham, this movie follows the romance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Graham in the final years of his life. The screenplay feels very biased, and it makes me wonder how much of it was actually true, since Graham's occupation was to blow up drama and cause a scandal in the newspapers. According to this movie, Graham was so physically attractive, Scott just couldn't resist her, and they constantly had blow-up fights and make up and break ups and it was so emotionally abusive that she was always a victim and cared too much and couldn't stay away because she feared for his safety and believe in him-Are you exhausted yet? Are you wondering whether or not every single scene is true? Don't go into this movie with high hopes, and if you're a huge F. Scott Fitzgerald fan, you're bound to be disappointed.

Ironically enough, Graham herself was disappointed with Gregory Peck's casting and portrayal. She wanted someone lighter colored, specifically Bing Crosby or Richard Basehart. Even more ironically, Fitzgerald's daughter was said to have thought Peck nailed her dad's personality. It just goes to show you that children and romantic partners have different points of view of the same person. Clearly, Graham wanted someone who came across as diminutive, unsure, and emotionally vulnerable (remember The Country Girl?). Gregory Peck doesn't look like F. Scott Fitzgerald in the slightest, and he could never pull off diminutive! Richard Basehart would have been wonderful, not only because of his physical appearance, but because he's a better actor. Don't throw anything at me, but Atticus Finch alone doesn't make an entire career of great performances. Basehart has layers Peck just can't take on, and this movie calls for acting chops Peck just doesn't have. If you doubt it, rent Fourteen Hours and try to imagine Gregory Peck on the ledge.

Deborah Kerr gives a typical Deborah Kerr performance, so if you like her, you'll like her in this movie. She's my mom's favorite actress of the golden age, but I'm not a fan. I wholeheartedly commend her for her desperation in the one great scene, though. On the whole, she showcases her wobbly voice, her strength, and her tearful emotion that she normally showcases in her movies. Weigh the potential pros and cons before renting this movie, and if you end up not liking it, just chalk it up to Hollywood drama and put it out of your mind. That's my advice.

Henry King is a master of making a storybook love movie;but when it comes to biography,(with the exception of "the song of Bernadette" which owed a lot to Jennifer Jones)his art becomes ineffective:in spite of two great actors,nothing works here.The scene on the beach where Kerr tells everything ,warts and all, turns up at the most awkward moment:why does she feel compelled to tell the whole truth when things are working so fine for her?Besides,Gregory Peck is much too famous and too "straight" to portray FSF successfully,we never forget he is Gregory Peck:he's so handsome it's impossible to believe he is an out-and-out alcoholic. Oddly,King's swansong the following year was a FS Fitzgerald adaptation, "tender is the night' but Jones had become too old for the part and it was a disappointment.

Beloved Infidel is based on the memoirs of Hollywood columnist Sheilah Graham, specifically her three year affair with F. Scott Fitzgerald, who is still a legend in American literature, and a genuine legend in his own time.

That's the key to the film. Can you imagine in the previous century Charles Dickens whose works in the United Kingdom were also acclaimed in his time getting a contract and asked to turn out potboiler drama three or four times a year for the London stage? In the late 1930s F. Scott Fitzgerald was in Hollywood having to pay mounting bills for his wife Zelda's care and his daughter schooling and the way to quick cash was in Hollywood writing screenplays.

But the studios don't want genius, they want entertainment churned out quickly on a mass scale. That isn't how Fitzgerald operates. So he's fired and returns to the alcoholism that was his lifestyle during his literary hey day in the Roaring Twenties.

As Fitzgerald, Gregory Peck's one consolation in his final years is the love affair with Hollywood columnist Sheilah Graham. I have to disagree with the other reviewers who say this film is too rosy a portrayal. Remember this is Sheilah Graham's work this is based on and it's through her eyes we see Peck's disintegration. Deborah Kerr is once again a prim and proper Sheilah Graham whose slum background she's worked like a demon to overcome.

Peck and Kerr work well together, but as this is a Henry King film from 20th Century Fox, I wouldn't be surprised if the film might have been intended for Tyrone Power at one point. If it had been Power would have been well cast in the part of Fitzgerald.

This is also Henry King's next to last film and take a look at his film credits and the astonishing list of classic films that he did over 50 years in Hollywood. I guess as a followup to Beloved Infidel, King chose to do a film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. That one for some reason is never shown.

Beloved is a classic old fashioned romantic drama the kind that sadly is not being made any more.

Beloved Infidel is the story of the real life romance between Hollywood gossip columnist Sheilah Graham (Deborah Kerr) and legendary writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (Gregory Peck). It is based on Graham's autobiography and the story is definitely told through her eyes. Plain and simple, the story is a soap opera and the quality of writing fits it. For a story about two professional writers, the script fails to properly develop the characters. Graham has one scene about 40 minutes in when she opens up a reveals the truth about herself, but it is not built on and scarcely mentioned again as the story transitions to a focus on Fitzgerald's drinking, which comes out a left field.

Kerr gives a good performance given how little she has to work with, and Peck tries his best to match her. However, Peck is a little miscast in this role as the emotionally troubled Fitzgerald. In between well done emotional outbursts, Peck reverts to his traditional stoicism, which works well in many of his other roles, but feels slightly out of place here. There is also a surprising no appearance by or hardly a mention of Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda. A fascinating person who at this point in her life was in a sanitarium. That is just one example of Graham's influence on the script, keeping the focus off of her lover's wife.

Ultimately, Beloved Infidel is probably not worth your time unless you are a big fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald or Deborah Kerr.