Joan miscast

The transition from seemingly innocent to femme fatale on Fontaine's part was not too convincing. Made it quite difficult to go along with the narrative in the realms of believability.

"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not".

I was intrigued by the notion of Fontaine playing a femme fatale, but she didn't really, it's just that all of her standard moves were in service of malevolent duplicity rather than frail innocence. In this sense, it was still somewhat interesting, like how your perception of the same conversation changes when you know more about the intent behind the words, as in The Conversation.

Curtis may have been pretty callous himself, but he's no Christabel.

Very good. But brick not hit back!

hka,

I agree, although count me as a huge Joan Fontaine fan.

First of all I have to assume the director wanted her to play the part as she did, and of course in casting her the film's producers were obviously aware of her prior performances, especially in Rebecca. In short I thought it was a conscious decision to play Joan Fontaine as a wicked femme fatale. That being hte case, at least on the level of casting and performance in THIS film, comparisions to her other performances are really beside the point.

In the context of the film itself her performance really worked. Whether she was gorgeous enough to pull any man away from Joan Leslie (an obviously beautiful woman in her own right) has to take into account that the Donna character pretty much gave up the contest. This was in large part because she was disgusted at feeling her fiance was so wrong to let Christabel put the doubts in his mind that he had. Donna felt it was too simple for Christabel to have done so, a reflection on his own insecurities about whether Donna (or any other woman) was really after him only for his money.

Zachary Scott played the part with a subtle insecurity compared to the nearly over the top masculinity and self confidence of Nick. I felt a comparison was involved here in Curtis's mind in part since Curtis knew Donna was "friends" with Nick. That we see nothing going on between Donna and Nick (other than her sitting on his lap!) doesn't mean Curtis would not have wondered why Donna wanted him over Nick - it must have been his money! I think Christabel merely played into Curtis's insecurity. Once Donna saw how easily this was accomplished, she felt the battle was not worth winning, and hence withdrew from the field as it were. No doubt the notion of some sort of prenuptial agreement only made it easier, not that she was in fact a mercenary.

Now the logic of the foregoing does raise a question why Donna would so easily go back to Curtis, but I need to think about that one more. I do think Donna did in fact love Curtis. Perhaps she felt he needed to see that he had in effect been played due to the very insecurity that drove her off, and would learn from that.

As for why Donna preferred Curtis to Nick in the first place, I think Donna did not feel that Nick was attracted enough to her to overcome what she saw in him as too risky a prospect for philandering. Women may find bad boys attractive up to a point. But not past the point where a life of misery seeing him go with other women seems a likely prospect. Hm.

I also liked Mel Ferrer's performance and role here. Robert Ryan, though, took some getting used to, since I can't get his performance as General Turgidson in Doctor Strangelove out of my mind. I suppose it works, but along with a bit of off dialogue, it is the reason I gave it a 9 and not a 10.

Joan Fontaine is lovely and wonderful throughout, but then I do think she was one of the great beauties and actresses of the 20th Century.

As for her character, what makes it largely appealing is we don't really know to what extent Christabel is or is not intentionally wicked, or more to the point when she seems to be, why is she? She takes too great a risk at fooling people when she has, from time to time, encounters that show her she has failed to fool this or that person, to make it seem plausible that such risk-taking is worth the potential rewards.

For example the notion that she was going to be able to run off to spend the afternoon with Nick and get Curtis to believe she had actually been visiting Aunt Clara was extremely risky. So much so as to seem implausible, instead suggesting the decision was impulsive, and motivated by sexual attraction to Nick. Yet at other times Christabel seems quite aware she is playing a game, playing those around her.

My own take is that for some reason she did not know how to play it straight.

In any event, I thoroughly enjoyed this film.

Franz,

I know you are not a Joan Fontaine fan in general. I guess it doesn't matter why, but for me your criticisms seem all about your take in what you call her trademark performance that you seem unable to see one performance as diffferent from the next. I have no such problem, and am sorry you have yours.

For others who read this...

It should be obvious that Joan played this part as someone who was not really self aware enough to see herself as a scheming bitch in Franz's terms. Yes she schemed, but without the self knowledge of being such a character, why should she act like one? It instead is entirely apprpopriate that the portrayal would not be one that looks like a conscious schemer.

To be clear I do not mean to say the character is one who does not "plan" to do the bad things she does. She was aware she was playing people at times, but missing was the self awareness as I have described here, and of course add in the occasions where her actions were so impulsive as to belie even schemingin hte first place (such as I noted before in her running off to see Nick near the end instead of visiting her aunt - a real schemer would have realized she was likely to be found out). Instead I mean she does not see herself as a self aware cutthroat type.

You have a point, she probably did want to get away from the "vulnerable and timid". I just wish she had chosen a better movie! But as you indicated, I watched it because she was in it and I like her.

"Only the suppressed word is dangerous"
Ludwig Borne

Shane you nailed it! "Off kilter" is right, and I don't think it was intentional. She was NOT RIGHT lol!

"Only the suppressed word is dangerous"
Ludwig Borne