CYRANO DE BERGERAC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 670, 9 May 1952, Page 14

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

(Stanley Kramer-United Artists) OR the second time within a fortnight I find myself respectfully applauding the collective judgment of the American icademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Jose Ferrer’s Cyrano de Bergerac is worth an Oscar in anybody’s bullion-and I have no doubt that the studio will discover it is worth a good deal in real money, too. As the fiery and sensitive Gascon with the outrageous nose, who would sooner fight than eat, who loves but dare not declare his love for fear of ridicule, and who in anguish of heart eventually helps another to win his own beloved Roxane, Ferrer is superbly in character. With stage experience of the same role behind him, his lines come over crisp and clean; he contrives to suggest in their just proportions the swordsman’s braggadocio and the quivering sensitivity it is intended to conceal, and when he is in the camera’s eye it is not difficult to see the France of Louis XIV there, too, with all its legendary romance, poetry and panache. It. is unfortunate that no one else in the cast manages to convey anything remotely like the same quality of place and period-but it is not disastrous. Cyrano is almost always there, and when he is within range of the camera you are not likely to be distracted by the solecisms of minor players. But a double

standard in the dialogue is often noticeable. At first I wondered if, in breaking down the text, the scriptwriter (Carl Foreman) had used all his ingenuity in preserving the wit and pvetry of the major part and given scant attention to the rest. But I came to the conclusion that in general the faults lay with the players. "Why do you do it, Cyrano?" looks fair enough in print; if it comes out as "Why’d’ja do it?" you can’t blame the scriptwriter. While the photography (directed by Frank Planer) does occasionally underline the conventions of the stage

and the artificialities of the plot, it is often-as in the opening sequence and in the episode of Cyrano’s midnight battle with a whole company of swordsmen-dramatic, exciting and admirably geared to the action. And it provides the film with a splendid beginning and a good end. How. true this all is to the original I can’t say, since I haven’t read the play by Rostand (black mark!). But the duelling is good-the best on the screen since Hamlet and Laertes crossed swords -and the story has in large measure the poetry, romance and emotion attributed

to the play. It should have, too, the same appeal for the ordinary spectator. By a curious coincidence, I was reading about Rostand himself the other evening, and learned that his work is being reassessed and valued today "as a lucid and moving dramatisation of his own sense of unfulfilment." On the strength of the Screen’s Cyrano (produced by Stanley Kramer and directed by Michael Gordon)-and perhaps of radio’s L’Aiglon-I would hazard the zuess that Rostand’s work will be enjoyed as long as his sense of unfulfil(continued on next page)

ment consoles us for our own. In the pursuit of happiness we are almost all of us beaten by a nose,