Adam and Evelyne

1949
6.2| 1h32m| en
Details

The father of a girl in an orphanage, who doesn't remember him, has been writing to her with tales of his success in business. Actually, he is impersonating a friend, a handsome gambler. When the father dies, the gambler takes the girl from the orphanage and tells her the truth. But the girl is now a full-grown beauty and complications arise, including those provided by a black-sheep brother.

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Reviews

GamerTab That was an excellent one.
Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable
SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.
TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
mark.waltz In reflecting on this film which I got to watch for a second time, I realized that Jean Simmons was playing a role that was exactly like one for which the very similar Audrey Hepburn later became successful for with "Sabrina". Simmons is a student in a boarding school, sent there by her widowed father when she was just a young girl, and who hasn't seen him since. She has collected all his letters and is preparing for him to come to take her away when fate steps in and he is killed. On her father' deathbed after a horse racing accident, he asks fellow gambler Stewart Granger to take her away from the boarding school and make her his ward, which Granger surprisingly agrees to without even thinking about it. But Granger's lady friend (Helen Cherry) is instantly jealous of the attention that Granger gives the young beauty, and she is sent away, returning two years later as a grown up beauty, just like Hepburn in "Sabrina". During that time, it is obvious that Cherry and Granger have grown apart, and Cherry uses her influence to passive/aggressively try to keep Granger and Simmons from getting further involved, citing Granger's gambling habit as a reason for them not to get too close. Simmons, realizing that her father was killed in a business that involved gambling, decides to take drastic steps to help Granger change his ways after Cherry makes one last desperate attempt to get further revenge and keep them apart.I notice that in old movies, it is always the pairing of older men with younger women that become serious romances (just look at the bulk of Audrey Hepburn's films), and when older women were involved with younger men, it was obviously a financial arrangement, with the younger man often a smarmy gigolo type. Certainly, Granger and Simmons were both very attractive in spite of their age differences, and would even marry after this film was released. The spark between them is obvious, so the age difference here is inconsequential. I didn't find much of the script believable, particularly Granger's agreement to take Simmons into his household in the first place without first meeting her. Simmons could play so many different types of characters, and even when she was cast as a true lady, there was always a hint of a fiery personality underneath, as she shows here when she throws an object off of her desk in the boarding school, only to hit an arriving school official in the forehead as she walks into the room. Her performance is simply marvelous in every aspect and thus she becomes the heart and soul of the film. After looking at Ms. Cherry's credits, I was surprised to discover the number of films she made and the fact that I hadn't seen her up until my first viewing of this or anything since makes me want to investigate her work more. She's a cool presence who subtly stirs the pot here, but it is Simmons whom you will come out remembering from this most of all.
bkoganbing Adam And Evelyn is a strange, but charming film about a man who put his daughter in an orphanage and went off to war. Never having seen his daughter for reasons the script does not make clear, he impersonates a good friend from the army, a gambler with a way with the ladies.The gambler is Stewart Granger and the girl is Jean Simmons and this strange love story was concocted for the two of them who were in a hot and heavy affair at the time. What didn't work for Ronald Reagan and Shirley Temple in That Hagen Girl or for Herbert Marshall and Simone Simon in Girl's Dormitory does work here. I'm guessing the skill of the players or a better script or both. You decide if you watch the movie.Simmons leaves the orphanage and comes to live with Granger and the two become attracted. Of course at some point Granger has to disabuse of the notion he's really her father. And then when that happens people start talking. He's also been seeing on and off Helen Cherry who was Mrs. Trevor Howard in real life and she's not liking seeing Jean poaching on territory she staked out.Granger and Simmons went on to get married and make to more films for MGM in America. One of them, Young Bess casts her as young Queen Elizabeth I and Granger as Thomas Seymour the much older admiral who tried to take advantage of then Princess Elizabeth to further his ambitions. He and the whole family came to a sorry end. In a way Young Bess is a dark version of Adam And Evelyn.Not the best film for either of the stars, but their fans should like it.
howardmorley Stewart Granger was 16 years older than Jean Simmons when they married in 1950, so they had real life chemistry together in this 1949 film as mature man (Adam) having a relationship with a beautiful girl (Evelyne).The plot has already been outlined by other user comments so I will merely comment on the time and direction.As someone who was born in 1946, 1949 was, for most of us, a year in Britain of food rationing, burdensome post war taxes and austerity.Shots of people drinking champagne, drinking and eating in nightclubs, buying expensive clothes and driving expensive cars were a million miles away from most Britons life experiences then.It is only in recent history that gambling has been legalised and it is worth reminding viewers that in 1949 this practise could be prosecuted hence the film's depiction of illicit gambling in private homes.The relationships of ex-service personnel in the post war period could be strong if they had previously shared privation together during the war in a life inter depending culture.This fact is clearly shown by Adam's steadfast friendship with his Irish jockey comrade who has secretly sired a beautiful daughter (Evelyne) who now resides in an orphanage.Adam and his Irish war friend share a mutual love of horse racing (and gambling) which keeps their friendship current with a strong bond of loyalty between them.The morality of the 1940s meant people could not be seen to be escaping the consequences of the law and a racing scam cooked up between them goes tragically wrong and the Irish jockey loses his life while racing.With his last breath he asks Adam to look after his daughter.A previous reviewer predicted the film's outcome but it is still enjoyable seeing how the characters finish.The mature divorcée who wants to marry Adam (while using her flat for gambling) is in for a bitter disappointment but so is Adam when she tips off Adam's ne'er-do-well younger brother, out of female spite, when she realises she cannot compete in the emotional stakes with the beautiful 20 year old Jean Simmons, when they give the police a tip off about illegal gambling.There is a nice cameo performance about morality from Wilfrid Hyde White who explains to Evelyne that heroes often come with clay feet.Enjoyable with competent direction in B&W. I rated it 6/10/
Adira-2 Possible spoilers: I used to think that cute and winsome comedies were a Hollywood specialty, but after seeing "Adam and Evelyne" I realised the British can do them too. Stewart Granger plays Adam, a professional gambler. Jean Simmons plays Evelyne, the innocent orphan he adopts. About fifteen minutes into the film it becomes easy to predict how everything is going to turn out - Evelyne will grow up, she and Adam will fall in love, and after reforming him, she will marry him. Not surprisingly, Stewart and Simmons sail through their parts. Neither made heavy demands upon the actors. Stewart was required to be suave and charming, while Simmons radiated naive innocence.Still, I have seen worse movies. There was nothing actually offensive or irritating in "Adam and Evelyne", nor was it slow moving or boring. The obligatory scene where Adam shows Evelyne the sights of the town was cleverly handled. Instead of the standard montage of famous sights, intercut with Evelyne's enraptured face, we saw a sequence of scenes depicting Evelyne's energetic and Adam's increasingly weary *feet*, with the characters' dialogue as voiceover. And if nothing else the sets and costumes were fun to watch.