Anthony Adverse (1936)
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Anthony Adverse Movie Review
Anthony Adverse is a 1936 historical drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Fredric March, Olivia de Havilland and Gale Sondergaard. It’s a mediocre movie.
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“We shall drink to the past,
forget the future,
and pleasantly live the present!“
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It follows the many adventures of the eponymous hero. Abandoned at a convent by his heartless nobleman father, Don Luis, Anthony is later mentored by his kind grandfather, John Bonnyfeather, and falls for the beautiful Angela Giuseppe. When circumstances separate Anthony and Angela and he embarks on a long journey, he must find his way back to her, no matter what the cost.
Being based on a long, sprawling novel, this film obviously has those typical problems that plague such adaptations – it is overlong, incredibly dull and simply not suited for the big screen when all is said and done. The story itself may have been good on paper, but as a movie, it appears odd, shapeless, without ideas and without even any point to it whatsoever.
It just goes through the motions, adding scenes of little significance as it moves along at a snail-like pace. I did not get from it any important themes whatsoever, and it just consists of huge melodramatic turn after turn with no proper pay-off. And I felt that the biggest plot points were described in the intertitles section instead of being shown on the screen. That was very annoying.
Anthony Adverse actually managed to receive seven Academy Award nominations. And needless to say, it is a very undeserving movie to receive that many nods. I did find its win for Best Supporting Actress an okay choice as Gale Sondergaard is actually very good and memorable in her fine role. And all of the great cast did a great job with March and de Havilland both delivering reliably strong work.
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But the other nominations aren’t all that deserved as the film’s technically rather weak. The cinematography isn’t particularly special and the editing is as bad as the pacing is with the intertitles structure being so overdone. It does have great music, though, and with that win I somewhat agree as it does sound epic. But the movie itself isn’t epic, but just incredibly boring and it ranks among the weakest Best Picture nominees from this decade.
Anthony Adverse admittedly has a terrific score and solid performances across the board from its great cast, but this is yet another overcooked, bloated book adaptation epic which has no momentum to it whatsoever. It’s sluggishly paced, rather dull and weakly plotted and adapted. It’s thus a very undeserving Oscar nominee.
