The first half hour of the 1944 adaptation of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize- winning novel is excruciatingly dull even with a rope bridge over an Andean
abyss collapsing. Uncomfortable with an eschatological question posted to him by a bystander peastant, priest Donald Woods sets out to find out more about
the five people who were on the bridge when it collapsed. Most of the rest of the movie (until a reprise that shows who was on the bridge in an exceedingly
phony studio-set disaster) recalls the career and would-be-lovers of a singer, Micaela (Lynn Bari), born poor, trained by impresario Uncle Pio (Akim Tamiroff) and vied for by the viceroy (Louis Calhern) and a ship captain (Francis Lederer). Except for the scenes with both of the suitors and a comical training of Micaela in swooning, the movie is dull and the whole is uncinematic, including the
framing disaster sequences. The scenes are overlit, the sets and dialog artificial, the music and cinematography uninspiring. Lynn Bari was devoid of mystery or
charisma (and given far too much screen time), and a ridiculously pat
Hollywood happy ending was substituted for Wilder's. Nazimova is wasted,
though Calhern, Lederer, and Tamiroff breathe occasional life into the
proceedings.
abyss collapsing. Uncomfortable with an eschatological question posted to him by a bystander peastant, priest Donald Woods sets out to find out more about
the five people who were on the bridge when it collapsed. Most of the rest of the movie (until a reprise that shows who was on the bridge in an exceedingly
phony studio-set disaster) recalls the career and would-be-lovers of a singer, Micaela (Lynn Bari), born poor, trained by impresario Uncle Pio (Akim Tamiroff) and vied for by the viceroy (Louis Calhern) and a ship captain (Francis Lederer). Except for the scenes with both of the suitors and a comical training of Micaela in swooning, the movie is dull and the whole is uncinematic, including the
framing disaster sequences. The scenes are overlit, the sets and dialog artificial, the music and cinematography uninspiring. Lynn Bari was devoid of mystery or
charisma (and given far too much screen time), and a ridiculously pat
Hollywood happy ending was substituted for Wilder's. Nazimova is wasted,
though Calhern, Lederer, and Tamiroff breathe occasional life into the
proceedings.