Anthony Adverse (1936)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Mervyn LeRoy

Writers:

Hervey Allen (novel)
Sheridan Gibney (screenplay)

Release Date:

29 August 1936 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Romance

Plot:

In 18th-century Italy, an orphan's debt to the man who raised him threatens to separate him forever from the woman he loves.

Plot Keywords:

Italy | Love | Orphan | Merchant | Debt

Awards:

Won 4 Oscars. Another 3 nominations

Cast

Fredric March	...	Anthony Adverse
Olivia de Havilland	...	Angela Guiseppe
Donald Woods	...	Vincent Nolte
Anita Louise	...	Maria
Edmund Gwenn	...	John Bonnyfeather
Claude Rains	...	Marquis Don Luis
Louis Hayward	...	Denis Moore
Gale Sondergaard	...	Faith Paleologus
Steffi Duna	...	Neleta
Akim Tamiroff	...	Carlo Cibo
Ralph Morgan	...	Signore De Bruille
Fritz Leiber	...	Ouvrard
Luis Alberni	...	Tony Guiseppe
Billy Mauch	...	Anthony Adverse, at 10
Henry O'Neill	...	Father Xavier

Runtime:

141 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Italian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | USA:TV-G | Australia:G | USA:Approved (PCA #1784)

Filming Locations:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Humphrey Bogart tested for the role of Napoleon; Bette Davis and Kitty Carlisle were among the many others who auditioned for roles.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Marquis Don Luis: I dare say you wish you'd never left Versailles. You had a very pleasant time at court with those gallant young officers. With one in particular, I recall.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Between Two Worlds: Erich Wolfgang Korngold (2001) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Orfeo (Opera in Leghorn)

Relic for Cinema's Treasure Chest

Hervey Allen (1889-1949) spun quite an elaborate, sweeping 18th-19th century yarn in the form of a gigantic novel, published in 1933, called "Anthony Adverse." It became a best-seller, and three years later Warner Bros. brought it to the screen, directed by Mervyn LeRoy.

The film was very long, comprehensive, and romanitc, in Allen's quasi-Dumas-Dickens-Tolstoy style.

Heading the cast were four of the screen's finest actors, leading players Fredric March and Olivia de Havilland; and supporting character players Claude Rains and Gale Sondergaard.

Providing the musical score was the legendary Eric Wolfgang Korngold (with orchestrations by Hugo Friedhofer) and classic masque and operatic excerpts by Monteverdi and Francetti.

The 141-minute film today seems much longer than it is, as we follow Anthony's detailed "adventures" in Europe, Cuba, and Africa, with America targeted as a final future destination. The whole production, which was considered of blockbuster size in 1933 (and still looks impressive), emerges more like a historic relic that is occasionally pulled from a treasure cabinet, to observe and ponder.

The whole feel of the film now seems dated and out-of-fashion, but then that's what most memorabilia is. It's merely dusted it off, polished, felt for the moment, then replaced along side other treasured pieces from the past.