SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

moonspinner55 W. Somerset Maugham's tragic story about a medical student in late 1800s London who is used and abused by a coarse, common waitress--one who has a habit of flirting with the wrong kind of men (she gets used, too). These two characters take turns debasing themselves and insulting each other, but a persistent question is never really answered: just what does the future doctor see in this woman? As played by Eleanor Parker, mercurial Mildred is childishly trampy and silly instead of dangerous; Parker switches her snarling anger on and off at whim, and when she pouts she sticks her chin out like a punished adolescent. As her would-be paramour, Paul Henreid (probably too old for the part, but not bad) has two expressions: a beaming, boyish smile and a thin-lipped, painful sort of incredulity. When he's chatting up a patient at the hospital or getting to know womanly authoress Alexis Smith, Henreid seems right at home, but his scenes with Parker don't quite come off. Story was previously filmed in 1934, and again in 1964, but this is the weakest variation, with little visual style, a skittering narrative, and uneven performances overall. ** from ****

sol ***SPOILERS*** Decent re-make of the 1934 film classic that stared Leslie Howard and Bettie Davis about a young man enslaved by the love that he has for a women who has nothing but contempt for him and uses him for her own greedy and selfish purposes.Paul Henreid seems a bit too old as the young artist Philip Cary who gives up art after struggling two years in Paris without being able to sell a single painting. Philip goes back to his native England to take up medicine and become a doctor like his late father. Eleanor Parker does a fine job of acting as the cold and unfeeling young waitress Mildred Rogers who rebuffs poor Philip and then uses him to help herself in the string of tragedies she gets herself into in the course of the movie. Seeing Mildred at a local tea room in London Philip becomes infatuated with her even though she want nothing to do with him. Getting Mildred to go to the theater with him one Satuerday night Philip falls so madly in love with her. Philip is so crazily in love with Mildred that she tells him, just to get him out of her life, one evening thats she's getting married to one of the patrons at the tea room that she's been flirting with; Emil Miller, Richard Nugent. Hurt and dejected Philip starts to overcome his fascination with Mildred and later meets Nora Nesbitt, Alexis Smith, a writer that he knew as a young art student in Paris and develops a loving relationship with her. With everything going fine for the two young lovers all of a sudden Mildred steps right back into Philip's life. Having been thrown out of the house by Mr. Miller and left pregnant by him Mildred wan't Philip back and would do anything to have him accept her back as his lover. Which she never was in the first place. Philip takes Mildred back at the expense of the shocked and hurt Nora who he leaves out in the cold. As the days go by and Philip asks Mildred for her hand in matrimony she go back to her old ways. Mildred starts to abuse him so much that she flirts and snuggles up to his best friend Griffiths, Patric Knowles, right in front of the hurt and humiliated Philip at a neighborhood restaurant.With all the abuse he takes from Mildred and the insecure feelings he has about himself Philips suffer every insult and put-down Mildred throws at him to the point where he at last loses the love that he had for her all this time. One cold and rainy Christmas Eve Philip leaves his apartment, as Mildred in an insane rage totally wrecks it, and goes to see the only people who showed any love or kindness towards him the Athenlys. Who's father Mr. Athenly he treated in the local hospital that he work at.Invited to come back the next day for a Christmas Dinner Philip, broke and homeless, falls victim to pneumonia and almost dies. Later with the help of his friend and fellow doctor Griffiths Philip is brought back to health. Back on his feet and with Mildred out of his life Philip finds the true love that he searched for all of his life but never realized Mr. Athelny's young and beautiful daughter Sally, Jans Paige,who was always in love with him. Later together with Sally and her family Philip puts the broken pieces of his life, and heart, back together. Mildred is later found by Philip at the very hospital that he's a doctor in dying from the lifestyle that she choose to live. Having already having lost her young daughter Mildred dies knowing that the person who could have saved her from this tragedy was the one that she treated like dirt all the time that he loved her. Powerful drama by writer W. Somerset Maugham thats as moving and touching now as it was when it was first published back in 1915 that proves the old saying: "He has the strength of ten because his heart is pure" and thats exactly what Philip Cary had.

nbott The acting by Eleanor Parker and Paul Henreid is superb in this classic story of love and sexual obsession. In some ways, it is truly a universal story of all of us. Who has not had, at least for a small period of time, such feelings for someone else. Most of us usually move on more quickly than our hero in this film, nonetheless it rings true. I was also genuinely pleased by the authentic period setting of this film and very impressed by the performances of all of the supporting cast, especially Edmund Gwenn. I really do not understand why this version is so rarely shown anywhere. This was shown recently on Turner Movie Classics, otherwise it is never seen. I think it is important for movie buffs to have access to different versions of such a classic story as this.

verna55 This retelling of Somerset Maugham's classic is very handsomely "got up", and features a wonderful performance by the gifted Eleanor Parker as the heartless heartbreaker Mildred Rogers. But Eleanor's go at the role didn't produce quite the same results as it did for Bette Davis twelve years before. However, if it weren't for Davis' triumphant performance, the 1934 version would be just as forgettable as the others that followed. The 1964 take with Kim Novak/Laurence Harvey is certainly the weakest.