Otto Preminger

(On Cable TV, March 2019) Historically, Forever Amber was the anticipated Great Blockbuster of its time. Billed as the next Gone with the Wind, adapted from a salacious blockbuster, showcasing actors that the studio was grooming for stardom, it was Fox’s most expensive film at the time … something not help by a troubled production that saw incredible delays, director Otto Preminger taking over the ongoing shoot, and multiple actors (including its female lead) replaced midway through. It set opening week box-office records, although the overall returns for the film remained in the red due to the very high budget. All of this is immaterial to modern viewers encountering the movie absent from its production context. Fortunately, enough of the budget still shows up on the screen to impress. As a costume drama cranked to ten, Forever Amber benefits from its lavish colour cinematography, amazing costumes and a lead actress, Linda Darnell, who looks amazing in red hair and very detailed dresses. The stylized nature of the film, set in late 17^th century England, helps it age gracefully as a historical recreation (albeit filtered through the lenses of the 1940s). George Sanders is also remarkable as Charles II. Plot-wise, the film isn’t quite as impressive: the melodrama is extreme (a lot of people die, all things considered), although the amount of not-so-softened sexual content is surprising coming from a film of its time—but it does make the film feel more modern than it is. (A curious facet of the Production Code years is that filmmakers could get away with more risqué material if they were adapting a best-selling novel.) The plot, as per the original book, is not meant to end well. Still, Forever Amber remains an impressive spectacle if you like costume dramas and enjoy the kind of overwrought style of Golden-age Hollywood.