Hans Christian Andersen (1952) - Fairytale giant given the full studio treatment

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Technicolor romance and upbeat fun is promised on this poster for Charles Vidor's Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen goes with the orphan Peter from Odense in Funen to the capital city Copenhagen in 19th century Denmark, where he becomes hired at the ballet and falls in love with an already wed ballerina, all the while he finds inspiration for countless of his famous fairytales.

 

Hans Christian Andersen is written by Moss Hart (Gentleman's Agreement (1947)), with Ben Hecht (Casino Royale (1967)) contributing uncredited work, based on a story by Myles Connolly (Between Us Girls (1942)), and directed by Charles Vidor (Sensation Hunters (1933)). It is very loosely based on the life and fairy tales of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75).

The story is completely preposterous make-believe, and the style is saturated with sentimentality and unreality. - Yet Hans Christian Andersen is nevertheless very terribly charming and visually attractive: Enormous and very well-made sets, gorgeously full Technicolor, a longer mermaid ballet sequence in the middle of the film, which is pure old Hollywood spectacle and more esteem the film immensely: Not least the camera work (by cinematographer Harry Stradling Sr. (Penelope (1966))), which - in a very gay and possibly (it has always been speculated that Andersen was homosexual) apt observation, - nurses Danny Kaye's (On the Double (1961)) Andersen in scenes with the handsome Joseph Walsh (Anzio (1968)) as his teenage assistant Peter. Their relation is acted with an unmistakable - although of course entirely platonic - tenderness.

Farley Granger (Black Beauty (1978, miniseries)) is good as the ridiculously big-headed ballet director. The realism is nowhere to be found in Hans Christian Andersen, SPOILER and the film's proposition that Andersen's inspiration for his The Ugly Duckling story for instance came from his meeting a beautiful, bald boy is laughable. But Kaye is wonderful. And Hans Christian Andersen is a delightfully strange and lovely film.

 

Related posts:

Charles Vidor: A Farewell to Arms (1957) or, Love in Spite!

The Bridge/The Spy (1929) - Time-playing fine short debut of Charles Vidor

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 4 mil. $

Box office: 6 mil. $ (North-American rentals alone)

= Uncertain but likely at least a box office success (projected return of 3 times its cost)

[Hans Christian Andersen premiered 25 November (New York) and runs 112 minutes. Kaye was paid 200k $ for his performance. Shooting took place in California. The film was the 4th highest-grossing in North America with 6 mil. $ in rentals. With a projected world gross of 12 mil. $, the film would rank as a box office success. It was nominated for 6 Oscars, winning none: It lost Best Art Direction/Set Decoration - Color to Moulin Rouge, Cinematography - Color to Winton C. Hoch and Artie Stout for The Quiet Man, Costume Design - Color to Moulin Rouge, Original Song (Thumbelina by Frank Loesser) to High Noon (Do Noke Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin') from High Noon by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington, Score - Musical (Walter Scharf) to Alfred Newman for With a Song in My Heart  and Sound to The Sound Barrier. It was also nominated for 2 Golden Globes, among other honors. Vidor returned with Rhapsody (1954). Kaye returned in Knock on Wood (1954). 5k+ users have given Hans Christian Andersen a 3.9/5 rating at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Hans Christian Andersen?

The Bridge/The Spy (1929) - Time-playing fine short debut of Charles Vidor

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In lieu of a picture from the short film, which is rare, here is one of its Hungarian director Charles Vidor

QUICK REVIEW:

The Bridge is a short film based on American writer and critic Ambrose Bierce's famous short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge from 1890. It is about a presumed train-saboteur or spy, who is to be hanged from a bridge, but who flees and sees his family before him, but then feels something tighten around his neck...
SPOILER The whole survival-plot is a subjective fantasy: The man gets executed.
This short experiments with time and is visually stunning if uneven otherwise.
Its director is Hungarian Charles Vidor, who did small writing jobs after it, until he began getting feature directorial gigs, starting with uncredited work on the Boris Karloff-starring The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932). He later directed big movies such as Gilda (1946), Hans Christian Andersen (1952) and Love Me or Leave Me (1955).

Related review:

Charles Vidor: A Farewell to Arms (1957) or, Love in Spite!

See 2 minutes of this fine short here, with a new soundtrack

What do you think of The Bridge?
Any comments on Charles Vidor and his films are very welcome

A Farewell to Arms (1957) or, Love in Spite!

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Despite this handsome poster for Charles Vidor's A Farewell to Arms, David O. Selznick's final production is not all that it promises to be

A Farewell to Arms is the second adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's (Death in the Afternoon (1932)) same-titled, semi-autobiographical 1929 novel.

The film portrays a romance during WWI between an American ambulance driver and an English nurse, who fall in love in Italy, before the war splits them up, and they later again find each other and are forced to flee to Switzerland, SPOILER where, however, tragedy awaits.

Despite criticisms to the contrary, I found Rock Hudson (Dynasty (1984-85)) and Jennifer Jones (The Wild Heart (1952)) to be a lovely couple, and the movie also attracts interest with its big sets and period vehicles etc., a warm sense of humor, - especially in the hospital scenes, - and in supporting roles, Viennese star Oskar Homolka (Five Fingers (1959, TV-series)) as a suspicious doctor, and great Italian actor/director Vittorio De Sica (Men and Noblemen/Uomini e Nobiluomini (1959)) as an Italian major. The film also has beautiful images of Milan, Switzerland etc.
But the lavish epic's second half does require strong nerves to take: The romance here turns too extravagant and unrealistic, SPOILER and the inevitable death is drawn out excessively. So the problem may lie mainly in screenwriter Ben Hecht's (Trapeze (1956)) work. Though Hecht penned scripts for many certified masterpieces and great films, he was also highly productive, and with impressive 165 writing credits, there is naturally a healthy dose of slush in there as well.
The movie is directed by Hollywood Golden Age filmmaker, Austrian-Hungarian Charles Vidor (Gilda (1946)).

Related post:

Charles Vidor: The Bridge/The Spy (1929) - Time-playing fine short debut of Charles Vidor

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 4.3 mil. $
Box office: 6.9 mil. $ (worldwide rentals by 1958) - final gross reportedly 20 mil. $
= Big flop at release - later reportedly became a big hit
[A Farewell to Arms was released 14 December (North America) and runs 152 minutes. Power-producer Selznick wanted for long to make a film of Hemingway's novel, and bartered with Warner Bros. for the rights in return for his foreign rights to A Star Is Born (1937). Selznick hired master director John Huston (The Kremlin Letter (1970)), but the two fell out before shooting, and Vidor was hired instead, although he also had a hard time collaborating with Selznick. Shooting took place in Italy, including in Rome's Cinecittà Studios. Hemingway was to be paid a 50k $ bonus, if the film made profits, but the Nobel Laureate was incensed at Selznick's hiring his 38 year-old wife Jones for the novel's 24 year-old nurse character and told him to "take all of that money down to the local bank, have it converted to nickels, and then shove them up your ass until they come out your mouth." US critics lambasted the film upon its release, and Selznick never recovered his costs for the film, which became his last, but it did eventually make Fox money. The film was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar (De Sica), lost to Red Buttons for Sayonara and also won a National Board of Review award. Vidor returned with one last film, Song without End (1960)). Hudson returned in Twilight for the Gods (1958); Jones in Tender Is the Night (1962), and De Sica in Holiday Island/Vacanze a Ischia (1957). A Farewell to Arms is rotten at 0 % with a 3.9/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Vidor's A Farewell to Arms?