There are some sets and outdoor scenes that are so phony they wouldn't fool a child. There is one set in front of the school on the road that is particularly annoying. The coal miners singing just so happen to be the best choir in Wales, realistic....not. I love Bette no matter what she does but Joan Loring totally steals the picture. Any actress LOVES doing a 'bad girl' role. They are seldom so deliciously bad as this.
shareIn a number of the interior shots with Davis and Dall in conversation it seems they were pickup shots after the set was struck as the rear projection screen swirls slightly as they emote. It's very visible when seen on a TV screen.
Come on lads, bags of swank!
I love you guys with the sharp eyes who know their stuff. Thanks for the input.
shareThe sets, lighting, and cinematography were designed to produce a stylized effect, and were not intended to 'fool' anyone into believing they were real locations.
shareThis is HOLLYWOOD man, not Kabuki theater or Brecht! The common man didn't go to see 'stylized effects' - they went to be sucked into another world they believed in.
shareI didn't notice anything out of the ordinary for an indoor shoot. There were obvious backdrops and other Hollywood gimmicks like the fake snow but that's how they did it in the 40s and I went with it.
"You may as well go to perdition in ermine; you're sure to come back in rags." Katharine Hepburn
Exactly. You've got to have the intellectual ability to "go with it", just as you would at an opera, ballet, or kabuki. If you aren't smart enough to be able to do that, I guess you're just out of luck.
shareThe obviously fake set doesn't bother me. This was a 1940s movie and even Gone With the Wind had fake sets. If made today, no doubt it would be filmed in Wales.
I was bothered more by how the villagers were more comic relief or caricatures than real people.
I did appreciate how the characters spoke Welsh, but it would have been more appropriate for the band to have played the Welsh national anthem in celebration of Morgan Evans' acceptance into Oxford.
A little sentimental but still a good movie.
Absolutely agree. Joan Lorring is a standout even in a film as perfectly and effectively acted as this one is. She was made for this part, and I don't think her handling of it could be improved upon. You just love to despise her! That she gives real insight into why she is, as she is, evokes a sense of sympathy for her, but detestation immediately overpowers sympathy. Her evil nature is, I believe, epitomized by her deliberately, and with an evil smirk, naming Evans as the father of "the little stranger". I'm glad that Lorring at least received an Oscar nomination for her performance - excellence duly recognized.
share"STOP CALLING IT THE LITTLE STRANGER!" I love when she gets on Bette's nerves.
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