It may have been only a "Hollywood Exchange" production but Myrna Loy couldn't have asked for a better starring part. She is so alluring as the vixenish Becky Sharp. Gone is the satire and biting wit of the almost 1,000 page novel - initially Myrna seems to be channelling her Countess Valentine character from "Love Me Tonight" as she comes out of her reverie just long enough to enquire "Is he married?"!! She has her sights set on Amelia's pompous brother Joseph Sedley (Billie Bevan) just back from an Indian safari. Of course Amelia is too much of a "simp" (Barbara Kent could play these characters in her sleep) to realise what's going on as Loy puts her exotic beauty to good use and runs rings around the film and the audience as well.
She is obsessed with high society and there is no shortage of beauty blinkered men eager to shower her with money and gifts in return for her favours. She goes to the Crawley's as a governess but it seems that the only time the children are visible is on her arrival - the rest of the time is spent fighting off the elderly master and his ardent son Rawdon (Conway Tearle, yes, I know, Conway Tearle!!). The son wins (or loses) and before too long they are up to their ears in debt with Becky entertaining doddery admirers who lavish her with wealth but that doesn't stop her crying poor when Rawdon finds he has to spend the night in debtor's prison and that is the last straw as far as he is concerned. Amelia is now married to George (Walter Byron) but while she is praising his virtue to the skies, he is secretly making assignations with his beloved Becky ("Does she bore you as much as she bores me"??)
Ned Dobbin was really the book's white knight and conscience - the only character you really warmed to and also the only person who saw through Becky from the start, but here he is reduced to just another hero waiting in the wings (Anthony Bushell) - for dopey Amelia to come out of her fantasyland and stop holding George up as a saint (he had conveniently died in a hunting accident).
There is no way that Becky Sharp was ever going to come out on top (like she did in the book). This was Hollywood in the thirties and pre-code not withstanding she was going to pay, God damn it!! - and pay she did with a maudlin ending in which pretty Myrna's face was hidden by gobs of makeup - lines, dark circles under the eyes and untidy hair. I think the modern setting was ideal for Myrna and she would have jumped at the chance to play the most "bad girl" heroine in literature.
Very Recommended.
She is obsessed with high society and there is no shortage of beauty blinkered men eager to shower her with money and gifts in return for her favours. She goes to the Crawley's as a governess but it seems that the only time the children are visible is on her arrival - the rest of the time is spent fighting off the elderly master and his ardent son Rawdon (Conway Tearle, yes, I know, Conway Tearle!!). The son wins (or loses) and before too long they are up to their ears in debt with Becky entertaining doddery admirers who lavish her with wealth but that doesn't stop her crying poor when Rawdon finds he has to spend the night in debtor's prison and that is the last straw as far as he is concerned. Amelia is now married to George (Walter Byron) but while she is praising his virtue to the skies, he is secretly making assignations with his beloved Becky ("Does she bore you as much as she bores me"??)
Ned Dobbin was really the book's white knight and conscience - the only character you really warmed to and also the only person who saw through Becky from the start, but here he is reduced to just another hero waiting in the wings (Anthony Bushell) - for dopey Amelia to come out of her fantasyland and stop holding George up as a saint (he had conveniently died in a hunting accident).
There is no way that Becky Sharp was ever going to come out on top (like she did in the book). This was Hollywood in the thirties and pre-code not withstanding she was going to pay, God damn it!! - and pay she did with a maudlin ending in which pretty Myrna's face was hidden by gobs of makeup - lines, dark circles under the eyes and untidy hair. I think the modern setting was ideal for Myrna and she would have jumped at the chance to play the most "bad girl" heroine in literature.
Very Recommended.