The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944) User Reviews

Talky Character Study Slow Going But Ultimately Rewarding

[oldblackandwhite · 6/10 · 31 January 2011]

Thorton Wilder's novel of 18th Century Peru, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, translates to the screen as a rather slow moving, talky picture. Certainly not amongst the best examples of the 1940's classic period, but not as bad some critics have made it out. Production values are mediocre, and the story more philosophical than exciting. It is worth sticking with, however, for the acting and the intelligent script. An Accademy Award nominated score by the superb Dimitri Tiomkin helps out immensely.

The importance of old silent movie has-been Alla Nazimova in the scheme of this picture has been rather exaggerated by her ardent fans. She is good in a supporting role, but she hardly dominates the movie. Lynn Bari, the leading lady, is excellent as the social-climbing actress Michaela, around whom most of the plot revolves. Francis Lederer, who in the next decade would take a turn at the Dracula role, carries a big load in a dual role as twin brothers, one a dashing sea captain, the other a depressed scribe. But this movie really belongs to veteran character actors Louis Calhern as the Viceroy who is in love with Michaela, and Akim Tamiroff as Uncle Pio, Michaela' manager and the Viceroy's confidant-spy. The witty, literate exchanges between these two is the most amusing aspect of the movie.

Admittedly this movie is not for every taste. The dialog is going to be too literary and too self-consciously philosophical for most viewers. Every character in this story is a prodigy of philosophy, continually thinking on and talking on what his or her life is all about and what God must think of it. Some find the futility of seeking after life's treasures, other find redemption. The story is structured entirely in flashbacks starting from the tragic collapse of a bridge in the opening reel and the efforts of a faithful monk to learn why God willed it so. Flashbacks, though a tried and true story-telling device probably predating literature, seem to irritate some people, but the structure works well in this one. The story picks up steam in the second half, then neatly folds the end into a resolution which satisfies both drama and philosophy.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is not top-notch entertainment, but has its rewarding moments if you are in the right mood.

Chronicler of a tragedy

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 21 August 2014]

Though this version of The Bridge Of San Luis Rey got an Oscar nomination for Dimitri Tiomkin's musical score, it was like watching half a picture.

The novel is as much about the Brother Juniper character's inquiry into the lives of the six victims who died when the Inca rope bridge broke as it is about their lives. What Donald Woods as Brother Juniper was trying to do was seek for some meaning in the tragedy. Was it dumb luck or was some divine plan in operation?

Years ago Felix Frankfurter who was of Viennese Jewish heritage was quoted as saying that when Chief Justice Fred Vinson died it was the first time he had seen evidence of the existence of God and hence a divine plan. Vinson was wrestling and unsuccessfully with desegregation cases and when Ike appointed Earl Warren as Chief Justice those situations were resolved and the Supreme Court was unanimous in Brown vs. Board of Education which ended segregation. Not too mention a host of other decisions that changed American life. That was what Brother Juniper was trying to determine, was some divine plan in operation? That's a question that is usually filed under the Lord moves in mysterious ways. Trying to see those ways makes you a heretic questioning things best left to the Divine. That's the real story, all Donald Woods becomes here is a chronicler of a tragedy.

Not that some of Thornton Wilder's characters don't have their moments. Louis Calhern makes a crafty Viceroy and he's equally matched by Akim Tamiroff's even craftier official snitch. Lynn Bari was all right in a part that cried for a Rita Hayworth. And Alla Nazimova is a regal countess.

Still Wilder's whole novel was cut in half and the story he was telling went with it.

Stick With "Our Town"

[Handlinghandel · 5/10 · 18 February 2005]

This adaptation of a great writer's novel falls far short of its intentions. It's hoity-toity without being either profound or risible.

Akim Tamiroff makes quite some Peruvian sage! I got a kick out of his comments on "the wiceroy," sounding for all the world like my own late Russian grandfather.

Lynn Bari doesn't have the flair for the femme fatale around whom the plot is built. The character is the Bizet/Merimee Carmen set in the land of Offenbach's "La Perichole." She is indeed called by that name. But the plots are dissimilar and we sure do miss the music.

Francis Lederer was a handsome and appealing actor and he is fine as her love interest. Alla Nazimova is good as the noblewoman who schemes to thwart her.

The movie seems to have spent all its money on rights to the novel and on some of the supporting players. It's low budget and what comes through of Wilder's philosophy is so watered down as to be meaningless.

Paulette Godard was in Renoir's American production of "The Diary of a Chambermaid" right around this time. The budget may not have been higher but the director was one of the very greatest and Goddard was perfect as the crafty title character. Indeed, I prefer that movie to Bunuel's later, more famous and highly regarded one.

"San Luis Rey" could have worked. But it doesn't.

We love Nazimova, otherwise...

[splurben · 6/10 · 24 August 2004]

I was so curious about Nazimova acting in the forties; I barely managed to get through the beginning of the film without her.

Bari is striking, but it might as well be Hedi Lamarr for all the Peruvian flavor thus imparted.

We can almost slightly believe 'Uncle Pio'

Otherwise, one simply watches this to see the phenomenon of Alla Nazimova as the Marquesa, who obviously only slightly enjoyed playing the horrible bitch and accessed the despicability of the costumes and sets with her Stanislavskian training to invoke bitter.

I was curious to note that Alla came through excellently in sound production. Which begs the question, "What the hell was she doing in the 1930's?"

Alla was clearly waiting to get paid and really deserves top billing over Bari.

A disaster of a movie

[som1950 · 3/10 · 30 January 2004]

The first half hour of the 1944 adaptation of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize- winning novel is excruciatingly dull even with a rope bridge over an Andean

abyss collapsing. Uncomfortable with an eschatological question posted to him by a bystander peastant, priest Donald Woods sets out to find out more about

the five people who were on the bridge when it collapsed. Most of the rest of the movie (until a reprise that shows who was on the bridge in an exceedingly

phony studio-set disaster) recalls the career and would-be-lovers of a singer, Micaela (Lynn Bari), born poor, trained by impresario Uncle Pio (Akim Tamiroff) and vied for by the viceroy (Louis Calhern) and a ship captain (Francis Lederer). Except for the scenes with both of the suitors and a comical training of Micaela in swooning, the movie is dull and the whole is uncinematic, including the

framing disaster sequences. The scenes are overlit, the sets and dialog artificial, the music and cinematography uninspiring. Lynn Bari was devoid of mystery or

charisma (and given far too much screen time), and a ridiculously pat

Hollywood happy ending was substituted for Wilder's. Nazimova is wasted,

though Calhern, Lederer, and Tamiroff breathe occasional life into the

proceedings.

Pretty dull stuff.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 4 September 2012]

Father Juniper witnessed the death of five people who were using an ancient bridge in South America in the 18th century. It left him wondering why a loving God would allow this to happen (as well as why He'd allow a movie like "The Bridge of San Luis Rey"). So, he spends the film investigating their lives--to see if it's all some part of God's divine plan.

While the plot is unique, it's amazing how dull the film is. In fact, repeatedly I found my mind straying as I tried to watch. At first I thought maybe it was me--I was tired. But as I tried watching the next day, it just seemed interminably dull. Much of it was the plot and much of it was the insipid direction as you never really SEE anything happening. In addition, I noticed that the film, at times, looked kind of cheap--such as the poorly painted background when the film began. Easy to skip.

By the way, if you do watch, look for Stymie Beard (from "Our Gang") in a bit part as a young servant in a wig.

Gorgeous production can't hide the missing heart in this adaption of a profound story.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 18 May 2014]

There's a passion missing in this second film version of Thornton Wilder's spiritual tale of five people who are suddenly killed when the straw bridge over a canyon in San Luis Rey, Peru collapses without warning. Donald Woods (Charles Darnay in 1935's "A Tale of Two Cities") is the monk who seeks to find out why of all people these five were taken to their deaths. The storyline follows a poor girl (Lynn Bari) who all of a sudden (like Eva Duarte Peron) becomes a famous actress and the object of several men's affections. She certainly isn't a sweet girl; In fact, she's rather selfish as she rises to the top. When she becomes the "kept" woman of Viceroy Louis Calhern (another one of his "villain" roles), she becomes the subject of scandal and one woman's vengeance.

The famous European actress Nazimova plays a matriarchal figure who lost the love of her daughter and takes in a waif (Joan Lorring) as a replacement, unable to come to love her. She wanted her daughter to marry Calhern and is furious when Bari gets that position instead. As the furiosity of her hatred rises, Bari publicly insults her and Calhern orders her to humiliate herself in order to win back Nazimova's favor. The confrontation scene between the two women is fraught with spirituality, but somehow, the acting doesn't seem sincere, and when circumstances bring the women together to cross the Bridge at San Luis Rey, the emotional impact of that tragic moment is sadly missing.

This is one of those films that can be called a "missed opportunity", and it seems, based upon the recent remake of Wilder's novel, that this is an extremely difficult story to transfer to the screen. All the factors are there to make it a touching melodrama, but both versions suffer from too little heart in a story that requires a lot of it. The film isn't helped by the fact that it seems to be more about style than substance, and moves very slowly. The actors for the most part (including Francis Lederer and J. Carroll Naish) seem to be walking through their assignments as if waiting for some divine interference to bring the meaning of their roles to life which sadly never comes.

Very disappointing!

[JohnHowardReid · 4/10 · 18 October 2017]

It is difficult to say whether this typical Hollywood reconstruction of a literary masterpiece did more harm than good. On the one hand, it is a complete and utter travesty of the book, totally changing not only its plot and characters, but also its thrust and point. The harm is that many viewers will think the film more or less faithful and will wonder idly why such a mediocre historical romance was so critically acclaimed. The good is that more active viewers might be stirred to actually read the book — as I was.

Judged by itself, it's not such a bad film. Lynn Bari is inadequate even by the modest demands of this script, though she does improve as the plot progresses. Oddly enough, the dialogue exchange in which she is most unconvincing — the scene in which Uncle Pio berates her for taking a dramatic speech too fast — is the only dialogue preserved unchanged from the book!

Donald Woods is embarrassingly sanctimonious as Brother Juniper. There would be a point to his cloying sanctity if Brother Juniper ended up being burnt at the stake, as he does in the book. But there's never any chance — or even any hint — of this happening in the film. Brother Juniper remains from first to last a beatific Hollywood do-gooder, beloved by all.

Admittedly, the Hays Office would never have allowed the producers of the film to get away with burning Brother Juniper for heresy, but I'm sure the dead hand of that Office did not insist on laundering all the other characters as well, mangling them into conventional stereotypes. All the vice (and interest) has been rung out of Uncle Pio and the viceroy. Instead, the Marquesa, who is the heroine of the book, has been translated into a potboiler villainess.

With the exception of Bari and Woods, the players do what they can with their mangled parts; while the director occasionally tries for a bit of style by using long takes and fluid camera movement. Some of the sets are quite sumptuous while others are inexcusably tatty. Presumably the movie's budget was blown on the market square and viceregal scenes, leaving little for the rest of the film. Boyle's vivid photography is not seen at its sharpest in the dupey prints at present circulating. These prints have also lost no less than 22 minutes of running time. As there are no obvious gaps in story continuity, it's quite possible that some of these scenes included snips of Bari on the stage.

When the book's plot has been so altered that not even the five characters killed on the bridge are the same, it seems superfluous to complain that the film also misses the novel's atmosphere and philosophy.

The great Alla Nazimova...

[drednm · 25 January 2004]

steals the film. Too bad the film is an el cheapo production of the Thornton Wilder novel. Lynn Bari gets a rare starring role with Louis Calhern, Akim Tamiroff, Francis Lederer, Joan Lorring, Blanche Yurka, and Donald Woods rounding out the cast. Bari is game and quite good in some scenes but she can't hold this film together. Nazimova, a great silent star of the teens and 20s, easily steals every scene she's in. The climactic finale is really disappointing and ruins whatever good will the film as accumulated up to that point. Still worth seeing for Nazimova and Bari.

Really stagy, over acted, over music'd

[ed-209 · 22 January 2004]

Really stagy, over acted, over lit, over music'd with almost constant strings. Could have been so much better. Almost painful to watch and I usually love old B&W movies. The combination of the bad lighting and unbelievably almost non-existent creativity in choosing camera positions make whatever abilities the actors had virtually invisible.