Although 1934 was the year of Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, and IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, MGM successfully translated this heavy-handed stage drama into a hit. Norma Shearer plays poet Elisabeth Barrett, who is virtually s shut-in, but has a will to live and in one touching scene, she looks through the window in her room to the outside, a flurry of emotions just shifting through her marble face, hinting of much inner pain.
That she later becomes the object of the affections of writer Robert Browning (Fredric March) sparks the already over-protectiveness of her father Edward Moulton Barrett into showing his true colors is part of the drama; he plans on keeping her home, and one look at his fierce eyes reveal a lot more than the Studio and the censors were allowing to actively display on camera except for one scene, in which he confronts Elisabeth near the end. One only has to watch at both actors' body language to know that they understood their characters: he is a control-freak who has sublimated designs on his own daughter and she knows it and is horrified.
If it's a little too tied to its flowery origins on the stage, this is permissible, because it does make for entertaining viewing and despite some of the performances showing their age, it doesn't tire. If the Academy had introduced the Supporting Actor/Actress category Una O'Connor would have won by default, giving a strong performance as Elisabeth's maid and confidant. One of the strong productions of 1934 and one of Norma Shearer's most textured performances as a woman of indomitable will who refuses to be tied down, not just to a chair, but to her own life at home under her father's unhealthy shadow.
That she later becomes the object of the affections of writer Robert Browning (Fredric March) sparks the already over-protectiveness of her father Edward Moulton Barrett into showing his true colors is part of the drama; he plans on keeping her home, and one look at his fierce eyes reveal a lot more than the Studio and the censors were allowing to actively display on camera except for one scene, in which he confronts Elisabeth near the end. One only has to watch at both actors' body language to know that they understood their characters: he is a control-freak who has sublimated designs on his own daughter and she knows it and is horrified.
If it's a little too tied to its flowery origins on the stage, this is permissible, because it does make for entertaining viewing and despite some of the performances showing their age, it doesn't tire. If the Academy had introduced the Supporting Actor/Actress category Una O'Connor would have won by default, giving a strong performance as Elisabeth's maid and confidant. One of the strong productions of 1934 and one of Norma Shearer's most textured performances as a woman of indomitable will who refuses to be tied down, not just to a chair, but to her own life at home under her father's unhealthy shadow.