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| Review of Waterloo BridgeLove story of ballet dancer, Vivien Leigh, and Scottish officer, Robert Taylor, ends in tragedy.
A brief commentPlease note that I saw this on HBO so I can't comment on the quality of the video transfer or its features.
One of the main pleasures of this movie is getting to see Robert Taylor and Vivian Leigh working together at the height of their careers. However, the rest of the cast is also excellent. Leigh is really outstanding as the dancer of artistic and sensitive temperament who descends into world-weary, hard-boiled cynicism by the end of the movie. Taylor is also excellent as the extremely confident and charming upper-class military man who manages to be both boyish and bumptious at the same time. :-) The film has a distinctly British flavor to it (it does take place in England), but it's mainly a story of old-fashioned values such as honor, integrity, honesty, and chastity (at least for the women), and how they affected people's relationships, and especially courtship and marriage, in the pre-WWII era.
The movie makes a couple of other points, one of which is how women are more vulnerable during times of social upheaval and war, where they may have few options for employment and to support themselves. Another is the difficulty in bridging the social gulf between Leigh's character, who was a dancer, and Taylor's, who comes from the upper class. In those days people where far more likely to marry within their particular social class. But the morality tale part may come off as a bit hackneyed and heavy-handed to modern viewers; nevertheless, the superb acting by the whole cast is what really carries this otherwise dated story concept, which is why (I know I'm going against the grain here) I can only give it 3.5 stars, because after a while it gets to be just too much Sturm and Drang about Leigh's having to become a prostitute to support herself.
WATERLOO BRIDGEFriday, Nov. 13, 2009
I've now seen Waterloo Bridge at least a half dozen times. I'm a Vivien Leigh expert and I have seen most of her movies. She is the one gifted actress of the modern era. This movie is captivating by it mixture of beauty and tragedy. Vivien Leigh's performance as the tragic Myra Lester is more memorable at times than in GWTW. There are show-stopping moments that are one of those 'most memorable movie moments' especially when Myra is at the train station and she sees something that changes her life. This is where the movie truly begins and it can all be expressed just by her face without even moving a muscle. Robert Taylor puts on a gallant performance but he is playing Roy Cronin of Scottish aristocracy. He's from the US Mid-West and doesn't make any attempt to put on an accent. There's a few times you have to suspend your disbelief in the movie. It was from another era but it is still quite timely. When I was a teenager I first saw just the opening segment when London was being bombed. I was young then and didn't watch the whole movie. When I watched it later, I was surprised. London was bombed during WWI! The movie wasn't taking place during WWII. There is great historical significance to the movie and what stops it from going down into melodrama is the heart-wrenching academy award winning soundtrack that includes Auld Lang Syne.
Waterloo Bridge gets overshadowed by GWTW and A Streetcar Named Desire but this is one of the best movies to come out of the 40's and Leigh's career. It's surprising that she wasn't even nominated for an academy award for such a strong, memorable performance. WB comes highly recommended as it will expand your knowledge of Classic Movies.
Judy D. Ivanda
White Rock, BC, Canada
Wahoo! Waterloo...This movie arrived on time, actually sooner... it is a classic which I shall enjoy for a long time, thank you.
I was prepared to hate it. I have a prejudice when .it comes to remakes. They are usually inferior, trying to capitalize on a earlier sucessful movie. But this 1940 remake of the original measures up. I guess star- power helps. How could anyone resist the beautiful, young Vivian Leigh. Robert Taylor looks pretty good too. Better I'd say than Clark Gable at that time. It is glossier & better produced than it's predessor seven years eariler. I expected a preachy tone being it was shot during World War II. Not at all. It is still the World War I love story of a poor dancer reduced to street walking, shortly after she meets a wealthy Scottish officer during a bombing of London. After hearing of his death she is driven to dispair. But he's not dead, just captured by the Germans & he couldn't get in touch with her. That enough, but if you haven't seen it you'll enjoy Vivian Leigh fresh off her triumph in Gone With the Wind & Robert Taylor at his peak.
DescriptionVivian Leigh stars as a ballerina in war-torn England who turns to prostitution when she believes her fiance has died in the war in this drama based on Robert E. Sherwood's acclaimed play. Robert Taylor co-stars. Year: 1940 Director: Mervyn LeRoy Starring: Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor, Lucile Watson, Virginia Field, Maria Ouspenskaya
Amazon.comMervyn LeRoy's 1940 remake of Waterloo Bridge, based on the play by Robert E. Sherwood, stars Robert Taylor as Scotsman Roy Conin, a middle-aged officer in the British army who reflects--on the eve of Britain's entry into World War II--on lost love during the last Great War. Told in flashback, Roy's ill-fated romance begins in a chance meeting with ballerina Myra Deauville (Vivien Leigh) during a London air raid. In less than two days, Roy's near-obnoxious, aristocratic self-confidence and boyish exuberance sweep Myra off her feet and she agrees to marry him before he ships out for duty in Germany. But there's no time for the wedding, and during what should be a happy first meeting with Roy's mother (Lucile Watson), Myra receives mistaken information that Roy is dead on a battleground. From there, Myra spirals downward into poverty and prostitution, until cruel fortune reveals that Roy is quite alive. While a tearjerker, Waterloo Bridge also says something about wartime conditions where women are caught between pressures of survival (especially where and when women have few options) and social values that condemn them for staying alive by any means. Told as delicately as possible, the film is directed with tasteful straightforwardness by LeRoy (Random Harvest) and the key performances by Taylor and Leigh strike exactly the right melodramatic but not bathetic pitch. Nice work, too, by Virginia Field as Myra's equally luckless friend. --Tom Keogh
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