Vivien Leigh is a beautiful but impoverished former prostitute, heavily courted by a man who doesn't know her past, and who can raise her far above her current station.
The above synopsis is familiar to those who have seen A Streetcar Named Desire, for which Leigh won her second Oscar for Best Actress in 1952. But the same description applies equally to her first film made after the seminal Gone With the Wind (1939), the largest grossing film for many decades, and for which she had received her first Best Actress Oscar.
Lovely, innocent Myra (Vivien Leigh) is a ballet dancer at a touring company run by humorless taskmaster Madame Kirowa (Maria Ouspenskaya). It is London during World War I, and Myra falls for a privileged, dashing, and impossibly nice military officer while seeking shelter during an air raid. He's Captain Cronin (Robert Taylor), and the feeling is mutual.
But Cronin's wealthy, snobbish family, led by his matron mother (Lucile Watson) and curmudgeon uncle (C. Aubrey Smith), don't look kindly towards the curious, unconnected Myra. But if they're not sure about her now, just wait until they find out what she's been doing on Waterloo Bridge. Myra and her headstrong roommate Kitty (Virginia Field) have been fired from the ballet for insubordination, and to make ends meet...
There's no need to finish the sentence, because such words were apparently unspeakable in 1940. The strict production code may have let Clark Gable shock audiences the year before by telling Leigh, "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn!" But they weren't going to let anyone on the set of Waterloo Bridge tell Leigh that she is a prostitute. Not directly, at least.
How different it all was in 1931, when Frankenstein director James Whale filmed the original version of Waterloo Bridge. In that racy (and more realistic) version, Myra was a prostitute before she met Cronin. The film was also closer to the original play by Robert E. Sherwood, who during his career would win the Pulitzer Prize on four separate occasions. (Sherwood also wrote the scripts for two of my favorite films, Rebecca and The Best Years of Our Lives.)
The production code came into being during 1934, and ruled Hollywood until films like Double Indemnity and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (both from 1944) began to erode it. But the subtlety forced onto the script by the code actually suited both Leigh and Taylor, and gave their characters a gracefulness that would not be possible during a more liberal Hollywood era.
The tragedy that befalls Myra is similar to that of Leigh's character in another of her famous films, Anna Karenina (1948). The portents of doom are laid out early in the film, which is told largely in flashback. This technique adds to the suspense. We may know that the lovers are to be parted, but we don't know how or when.
The story and direction yanks us around with endless raised and dashed hopes, and seemingly permanent separations that prove fleeting. Taylor and Leigh are so painfully nice throughout that you can't help but feel sorry for them. Some will find it to be a 'four hanky' film, but such reactions are highly personal. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) is the real weeper from the 1940s.
1940 was a busy year for Vivien Leigh. She married noted thespian Laurence Olivier later that same year, after both had obtained divorces from their previous spouses. They did manage to make a few films together, but their best films of the era were made apart. Certainly, Olivier is better known for Rebecca and Wuthering Heights than for 21 Days and That Hamilton Woman, the latter two with Leigh co-starring.
Waterloo Bridge was nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Cinematography (Joseph Ruttenberg) and Best Original Score (Herbert Stothart). It would be remade again as Gaby (1956) starring a real life dancer, Leslie Caron. (72/100)
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