DESIREE
(20th Century-Fox) S Mark Antony might have put it, Facilis descensus Averno. Perhaps>it is a little steep to suggest that Désirée gets -as close as that to rock-bottom, but the intelligent filmgoer would probably agree that for Mr. Brando it
represents a long tobog-gan-ride from the dramatic heights of Jelics Caesar. Yet Désirée, the fuglemen of the film industry informed me, had all the flesh and fire of Annemarie Selinke’s internationally acclaimed best-seller and was, -forby, the Most Passionately Told Story Cinema- | Scope had Ever Embraced. What with one | thing and another, I felt | I couldn’t afford to miss it. It’s true that I hadn't even heard of Miss ~Selinke, far less read her
best-seller (which just shows you the kind of cultural cul-de-sac I inhabit), but if anyone aims a_ passionately-told love-story at me, I’m a sitting duck. Behold me, then ensconced in the ci-devant two-and-threpennies, a bag of jujubes clutched in my hot little hand and all prepared to sweat it out. It was a protracted business. I don’t know exactly how long the film was (projectionists will persist in showing the
Censor’s certificate on the screen curtains), but, we had our vanilla tubs at eight-thirty. Ahead of us lay revolutionary France, from the Directoire to the fall of the Empire, the marching and counter marching across Europe — Austerlitz, Jena, Moscow, Leipzig, Waterloo. So far as Desirée went, they’re still ahead. We got a _ whiff of Tchaikovski around about. 1812, and a glimpse of Tricouleurs (in de Luxe colour) waving bravely eastward, then a moment later the
boom of offstage cannon, the suggestion of snowflakes and the same ensigns (somewhat battle-soiled) drooping westward. But that’s as much as we saw of the Napoleonic wars. As the ad-men were at pains to imply, Désirée is concerned with the Daughters of the French Revolution rather than with the sons, and the campaigns it records are those of the salon and the boudoir. Désirée (Jean Simmonds), though a Marseillaise, is not quite a foundation member of the D.F.R., but she gets in on the groundfloor with the Bonapartists. Joseph Bonaparte marries her sister; and Désirée meets Napoleon Brando himself when he is no more than a three-star general. She falls in love with him (he reciprocates); she pursues him to Paris (she is young, impulsive, candid-she _ also keeps a Diary). Amid scorching scenes of High-Life she catches him courting Josephine at Malmaison, and on the rebound marries Marshal Bernadotte. "You're the second man I’ve ever kissed," she murmurs, chucking up the sponge, "do it again." And, of course, there’s loads more in the same vein. . It’s not that I object to the drama of intrigue, per se. I’ve no doubt that this movie does at some points coincide with history; that at some more widely sep‘arated points it held the seeds of drama. Michael! Rennie’s Bernadotte is a fairly good performance, Brando manages to makes the most of his entrances and exits (the last excepted), and he gives us the face, the figure and the carriage of Napoleon-so far as we can judge these from contemporary portraits. The photography is scarcely inspiring, but on the other hand the settings are lavish (the crowning of Josephine, for example, is a faithful reproduction of David's painting in the Louvre)... I have no doubt, too, that there was a broad streak ef vulgarity in the Napoleonic court, with its upstart dukes and princes, and this manages to seep through, though it doesn’t quite sound as it ought. In fact, very little sounds right in the film. Indeed, I sat through it all without once suffering the illusion that I was present at the turbulent beginning of the 19th Century.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19550204.2.33.1.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 810, 4 February 1955, Page 16
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616DESIREE New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 810, 4 February 1955, Page 16
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.