1939: Colonel Roy Cronin stands on Waterloo Bridge, remembering his lost love Myra...
In her first film after GONE WITH THE WIND, Vivien Leigh was unhappy acting opposite Robert Taylor having wanted Olivier instead. But his lightweight performance allows her to shine and they both later said it was their favourite film.
Roy and ballerina Myra meet sheltering from a WWI air-raid and he later sees her dance. Despite the ballet mistress' orders, they meet after the performance and fall instantly in love.
Roy is ordered back to France before they can marry and a desolate Myra is sacked by the ballet mistress along with her friend Kitty for defending her.
Myra reads that Roy has been killed and, unemployed and depressed, joins Kitty in prostitution.
While working Waterloo Station, Myra meets Roy - still alive and still in love...
But, tragically, Myra is too honest to forget her shame...
Shelf or charity shop? A definite shelf for my luminous Vivien. Although not a success on Broadway, Robert E Sherwood's play was filmed in 1931 starring Mae Clarke and also a ropey remake in 1956 with Leslie Caron. LeRoy's film is perfect Hollywood melodrama with marvellous photography and music and a fairly good representation of London. Robert Taylor doesn't attempt the Scottish accent his character should have but he is inoffensive and leaves the way clear for Vivien's wonderful performance, it is amazing to think she was only 27. There is fine support from Virginia Field as the ever-realistic Kitty, Maria Ouspenskaya as Madame Olga, Lucille Watson as Taylor's upper-class mother and, in one scene and a thimble-full of lines, Ethel Griffies is glorious as a harridan landlady - Griffies is now remembered as the sceptical ornithologist Mrs Bundy in Hitchcock's THE BIRDS.
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