Love Lost: Waterloo Bridge
Sep. 14th, 2005 05:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieOne of my all time favorite tragic, romantic movies is Waterloo Bridge, set in WWI England and starring the impossibly beautiful Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor.
Leigh plays Myra, a fragile and somewhat unworldly ballerina who has a brief, wartime affair with the aristocratic officer, Roy Cronin (the uber-gorgeous Robert Taylor). They meet during an air raid, and it's love at first sight for him. He woos her and love blooms, but he is shipped to the front and she sees his name on the casualty list. By that point, she has been fired from her job (as she missed a performance to see him off) and having no means of support turns to prostitution. And then, looking for clients at Waterloo station, she sees Roy...
Somehow, despite the subject matter, the movie does not feel melodramatic. Just heartbreakingly wistful and sad. In fact, just thinking of this movie makes me bawl and every time I watch it I hope for a different outcome. I adore the characters because they are (and go) places you don't expect them.
Myra is hideously impractical and is, from the beginning, a kind of person who, unless they are lucky, will be horribly hurt by life. She is full of an innate sadness, as if she doesn't believe good things can happen to her. She is both too idealistic and not able to face up to the grim realities of life. One moment that sticks so much in mind as emblematic of her is when she and Kitty are out of money but she won't let Kitty sell the gorgeous and very expensive flowers Roy had sent (she has not yet found out about his death). Perhaps she tries so hard to stay detached and not to fall in love in the beginning because she knows that once she falls, she will be gone...
She is someone who needs to be cared for, to blossom under happiness and plenty and love. And she has this wistful sweetness that makes you want to do that. And the tragedy is that Roy, with his sense of joy, his privileged security, and his deep, unquestioning love for her would have been just the man to do so.
When she finds out that Kitty has been supporting her (she has been very sick) by whoring and decides to join the "profession" herself...it's a hard scene to watch. From the moment she finds out Roy is dead, you see her strings are cut and she has no reason for continuing, nothing except a grim determination. And then you see her, in her too tight dress, garish lipstick, with a stone face, and you know that this woman is dying inside every day.
Roy is a whole other story. He is exactly what Myra needs. He starts the movie a bright, boyish, confident man, who is somehow older and more worldly than Myra, but swept up in the emotion just the same. And your heart breaks for him when he sees her at the station, and does not know she is "soliciting." He is delirious with joy and all of a sudden Myra seems years older than he is. But where I really fell in love with his character was at the climax. In it Myra, who could not bear to conceal the truth OR tell him, fled from the house and he came to London to see Kitty. And Kitty asks him if he can bear the truth and tells him what Myra did for a living while he was gone. And he is in complete, soul-killing pain, but he does not waiver one second about wanting to find her, and his only thought is worry about what happened to Myra. And he searches and searches and...argh!
You know this is a fragile, beautiful, doomed story from the beginning, but you can't help but hope.
If that's not enough, the scene where Roy and Myra waltz to an Auld Lang Syne is one of the most romantic scenes ever...
My favorite Vivien Leigh picture:
The lovely Myra in happier times:
And in miserable ones:
The upper class Roy:
The doomed lovers:
Satisfying my "the guy carrying the girl" kink:
Talking and falling in love over dinner:
Roy introduces his fiancee to his commanding officer:
Dancing in society:
Happy:
Unhappy:
Myra and Roy's incomprehending mother:
Myra, Kitty, and their stern bitch of a boss:
I really love this promo shot:
Myra and Roy with really odd expressions on their faces. I think this is a publicity still gone mad:
Apparently this was both Robert Taylor's and Vivien Leigh's favorite film of all of their output. All I can say is: good taste on their parts! It's available both on VHS and on a variety of not as crisp Region 0 DVDs. I really hope the studio will do a proper DVD release of this one soon. And in case you are still not convinced, here is an IMDB write-up which really puts perfectly why I love this movie. It's not my write-up, but the writer seems to have gone into my head.
This film is one of a tiny handful which, despite repeated viewings, I would award a vote of ten out of ten. Not because it's a great cultural classic studied in hushed tones by post-graduate students (for all I know this may be so, but I've never heard of it), but because it succeeds entirely and seamlessly in what it sets out to do.
'Waterloo Bridge' is one of those rare films that never seems to strike a false note or put a foot wrong. There is not a wasted moment in the screenplay -- every shot has meaning, every scene plays its part -- and the dialogue gains its power through the lightest of touches. The single scene that brings me to tears every time is that brief, banal interview in the café, with the dreadful unknowing irony of every word Lady Margaret says.
Yet for an avowed tear-jerker, and one that centres around wartime separation and hardship, in an era where unemployment could mean literal starvation, the film contains perhaps more scenes of unalloyed happiness than any modern-day romance. The script is understated, sparkling with laughter and even at its darkest salted with black jest, while no-one can doubt the central couple's joy in each other. They themselves acknowledge, and repeatedly, the sheer implausibility of their romance: but war changes all the rules, makes people -- as Roy says -- more intensely alive. (The actor David Niven, for one, married an adored wife in wartime within days of their first meeting.)
As Myra Lester, Vivien Leigh has seldom given a more lovely or accomplished performance. There is a world of difference between her depiction of the sweet-faced innocent who is mistaken for a school-girl at the start of the film and the sullen, worn creature who saunters through Waterloo Station... and then is miraculously reborn. Myra's face is an open book, and Leigh shows us every shade of feeling. In a reversal of expectations, she is the practical, hesitant one, while Roy, older, is the impetuous dreamer; a role in which Robert Taylor is both endearing and truly convincing. I find few cinematic romances believable, but for me this lightning courtship rings utterly true in every glance or smile that passes between them, from the moment they catch sight of each other for the second time.
Virginia Field also shines as Myra's friend, the hardbitten ex-chorus-girl Kitty, while C.Aubrey Smith provides sly humour as an unexpectedly supportive Colonel-in-Chief and Lucille Watson is both stately and sympathetic as Lady Margaret. But this is really Vivien Leigh's film, with Taylor's more than able aid, and she is transcendent.
'Waterloo Bridge' has a touch of everything: laughter, tears, tension, misunderstanding, sweetness, beauty and fate. It couldn't be made in today's Hollywood without acquiring an unbearable dose of schmaltz; in the era of 'Pretty Woman' it probably couldn't be made at all. But of its kind it is perfect. The only caveat I'd make, under the circumstances a minor one, is that -- as again in 'Quentin Durward' fifteen years later -- Robert Taylor's lone American accent in the role of a supposed Scot is from time to time obtrusive.
Leigh plays Myra, a fragile and somewhat unworldly ballerina who has a brief, wartime affair with the aristocratic officer, Roy Cronin (the uber-gorgeous Robert Taylor). They meet during an air raid, and it's love at first sight for him. He woos her and love blooms, but he is shipped to the front and she sees his name on the casualty list. By that point, she has been fired from her job (as she missed a performance to see him off) and having no means of support turns to prostitution. And then, looking for clients at Waterloo station, she sees Roy...
Somehow, despite the subject matter, the movie does not feel melodramatic. Just heartbreakingly wistful and sad. In fact, just thinking of this movie makes me bawl and every time I watch it I hope for a different outcome. I adore the characters because they are (and go) places you don't expect them.
Myra is hideously impractical and is, from the beginning, a kind of person who, unless they are lucky, will be horribly hurt by life. She is full of an innate sadness, as if she doesn't believe good things can happen to her. She is both too idealistic and not able to face up to the grim realities of life. One moment that sticks so much in mind as emblematic of her is when she and Kitty are out of money but she won't let Kitty sell the gorgeous and very expensive flowers Roy had sent (she has not yet found out about his death). Perhaps she tries so hard to stay detached and not to fall in love in the beginning because she knows that once she falls, she will be gone...
She is someone who needs to be cared for, to blossom under happiness and plenty and love. And she has this wistful sweetness that makes you want to do that. And the tragedy is that Roy, with his sense of joy, his privileged security, and his deep, unquestioning love for her would have been just the man to do so.
When she finds out that Kitty has been supporting her (she has been very sick) by whoring and decides to join the "profession" herself...it's a hard scene to watch. From the moment she finds out Roy is dead, you see her strings are cut and she has no reason for continuing, nothing except a grim determination. And then you see her, in her too tight dress, garish lipstick, with a stone face, and you know that this woman is dying inside every day.
Roy is a whole other story. He is exactly what Myra needs. He starts the movie a bright, boyish, confident man, who is somehow older and more worldly than Myra, but swept up in the emotion just the same. And your heart breaks for him when he sees her at the station, and does not know she is "soliciting." He is delirious with joy and all of a sudden Myra seems years older than he is. But where I really fell in love with his character was at the climax. In it Myra, who could not bear to conceal the truth OR tell him, fled from the house and he came to London to see Kitty. And Kitty asks him if he can bear the truth and tells him what Myra did for a living while he was gone. And he is in complete, soul-killing pain, but he does not waiver one second about wanting to find her, and his only thought is worry about what happened to Myra. And he searches and searches and...argh!
You know this is a fragile, beautiful, doomed story from the beginning, but you can't help but hope.
If that's not enough, the scene where Roy and Myra waltz to an Auld Lang Syne is one of the most romantic scenes ever...
My favorite Vivien Leigh picture:
The lovely Myra in happier times:
And in miserable ones:
The upper class Roy:
The doomed lovers:
Satisfying my "the guy carrying the girl" kink:
Talking and falling in love over dinner:
Roy introduces his fiancee to his commanding officer:
Dancing in society:
Happy:
Unhappy:
Myra and Roy's incomprehending mother:
Myra, Kitty, and their stern bitch of a boss:
I really love this promo shot:
Myra and Roy with really odd expressions on their faces. I think this is a publicity still gone mad:
Apparently this was both Robert Taylor's and Vivien Leigh's favorite film of all of their output. All I can say is: good taste on their parts! It's available both on VHS and on a variety of not as crisp Region 0 DVDs. I really hope the studio will do a proper DVD release of this one soon. And in case you are still not convinced, here is an IMDB write-up which really puts perfectly why I love this movie. It's not my write-up, but the writer seems to have gone into my head.
This film is one of a tiny handful which, despite repeated viewings, I would award a vote of ten out of ten. Not because it's a great cultural classic studied in hushed tones by post-graduate students (for all I know this may be so, but I've never heard of it), but because it succeeds entirely and seamlessly in what it sets out to do.
'Waterloo Bridge' is one of those rare films that never seems to strike a false note or put a foot wrong. There is not a wasted moment in the screenplay -- every shot has meaning, every scene plays its part -- and the dialogue gains its power through the lightest of touches. The single scene that brings me to tears every time is that brief, banal interview in the café, with the dreadful unknowing irony of every word Lady Margaret says.
Yet for an avowed tear-jerker, and one that centres around wartime separation and hardship, in an era where unemployment could mean literal starvation, the film contains perhaps more scenes of unalloyed happiness than any modern-day romance. The script is understated, sparkling with laughter and even at its darkest salted with black jest, while no-one can doubt the central couple's joy in each other. They themselves acknowledge, and repeatedly, the sheer implausibility of their romance: but war changes all the rules, makes people -- as Roy says -- more intensely alive. (The actor David Niven, for one, married an adored wife in wartime within days of their first meeting.)
As Myra Lester, Vivien Leigh has seldom given a more lovely or accomplished performance. There is a world of difference between her depiction of the sweet-faced innocent who is mistaken for a school-girl at the start of the film and the sullen, worn creature who saunters through Waterloo Station... and then is miraculously reborn. Myra's face is an open book, and Leigh shows us every shade of feeling. In a reversal of expectations, she is the practical, hesitant one, while Roy, older, is the impetuous dreamer; a role in which Robert Taylor is both endearing and truly convincing. I find few cinematic romances believable, but for me this lightning courtship rings utterly true in every glance or smile that passes between them, from the moment they catch sight of each other for the second time.
Virginia Field also shines as Myra's friend, the hardbitten ex-chorus-girl Kitty, while C.Aubrey Smith provides sly humour as an unexpectedly supportive Colonel-in-Chief and Lucille Watson is both stately and sympathetic as Lady Margaret. But this is really Vivien Leigh's film, with Taylor's more than able aid, and she is transcendent.
'Waterloo Bridge' has a touch of everything: laughter, tears, tension, misunderstanding, sweetness, beauty and fate. It couldn't be made in today's Hollywood without acquiring an unbearable dose of schmaltz; in the era of 'Pretty Woman' it probably couldn't be made at all. But of its kind it is perfect. The only caveat I'd make, under the circumstances a minor one, is that -- as again in 'Quentin Durward' fifteen years later -- Robert Taylor's lone American accent in the role of a supposed Scot is from time to time obtrusive.
