3/10
even funnier than 'ben hur'; even deeper than 'titanic'
15 January 2006
There are some movies where you just sit there wondering how to cover both your eyes and your ears as one affront to taste follows another. "No: they can't possibly..." But yes. A plot that is a succession of utterly preposterous devices constructed to allow the producer's g.f. to age conspicuously and emote. Awful, pompous dialogue, the kind that actors wade through: notice the glassy eyes of anyone on-screen who has had to listen to the stuff for fifty takes. An unerring eye for visual kitsch. All with a score from Claude Debussy.

Poor Jennifer Jones. The story was a dumb idea in the first place, she's miscast, the words are duff, and to cap it all she's been directed into the ground. "Be more winsome!" She looks like a kind of desperate ventriloquist's dummy. She's just awful.

Joseph Cotten as a romantic fruitcake painter is deeply, deeply unconvincing. The script doesn't help, but he's just not romantic lead material.

But still, I bet this was Liberace's favourite movie. Just the thing to watch while a candelabra rotates on your grand piano.
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