Did She or Didn't She?: "My Cousin Rachel"

Daphne du Maurier was one of my favorite authors when I was in high school and I read almost all her novels (not sure about Rule, Britannia), and I read them all more than once. My paperback copy of My Cousin Rachel started falling apart and I found a used hardcover! Earlier this week Turner Classic Movies aired the 1952 movie based on the novel starring Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton. The movie is very faithful adaptation of the novel and Olivia de Havilland's performance as Rachel captures the mysterious fascination of the character very well.

The question at the heart of the story is whether or not Rachel poisoned two cousins who loved her, first Ambrose whom she married and then Philip who wanted to marry her. She may not have given them poison through her brewed tisanes, which is what Philip comes to suspect, but she certainly "poisoned" them with obsessive love which destroyed both men. Her affair with Ambrose is told at a remove through his letters and her reports of his illness and change in behavior. We witness how Philip becomes obsessed with her, wants to give her everything, expects everything in return from her--and then begins to doubt not only her but his own suspicions about her. His guardian warns him that there are some women who through no fault of their own bring trouble and disaster to those who love them. Philip should have married Louise like everyone thought he should!

De Havilland's calm, pleasant face, soothing voice, elegant figure, and quiet, sly demeanor are perfect for the role: can someone so lovely be a murderer? But she also shows resolve and steely determination. Richard Burton, in his first Hollywood film, is young, handsome, and impetuous, yet brooding enough.

Evidently, a new adaptation of the novel is in the works (the BBC produced a meandering adaptation in the 1980's), according to the Daphne du Maurier website:

19th February 2016. The likelihood of a film for cinema of Daphne du Maurier’s novel My Cousin Rachelseems to be increasing. Before Christmas it became clear that Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin had been cast for starring roles in the new movie. This week it has been suggested that Holliday Grainger will also join the cast.

News filtering through so far indicates that the writer-director Roger Michell will be reworking the novel and setting it in more modern times. However young Philip will still be at the heart of the story, which sees his guardian Ambrose die in circumstances which may incriminate Rachel. However the beguiling Rachel side-tracks Philip’s concerns when he becomes emotionally involved with her.

In the original novel Daphne du Maurier left the ending to the reader’s imagination, later saying that even she did not know if Rachel was innocent. It will be interesting to see how the film-makers decide to conclude the story.

If they resolve the ambiguity, they will destroy the story.

Belloc's Older Sister Marie and Her Movies!

In The Independent, Christopher Fowler summarizes her career and her most famous novel, The Lodger:

She was a prolific author, but her fame rests on a single novel. The only daughter of a French barrister and an English feminist, Marie Belloc Lowndes (1868-1947) was the sister of Hilaire Belloc, the granddaughter of the painter Jean-Hilaire Belloc, and the great-granddaughter of a famous theologian who invented soda water. She was one of the first to join the Women Writers' Suffrage League, and married a Times journalist. After her husband was left a legacy of £2,000 she had the financial security to risk a writing career, and began pouring out novels, essays, plays and memoirs at a rate of one a year, (I tally her total output at around 72 volumes but there may have been more).

Lowndes proved to be brilliant at combining suspenseful, exciting plotting with psychological insight. Her novel Letty Lynton became a film vehicle for Joan Crawford, but there was another far more sensational book. In 1913, her novel The Lodger was slow to attract readers but gradually became a smash hit, eventually selling more than a million copies. It was loosely based around the Jack the Ripper murders, an outrage that had occurred just 25 years earlier and was still being discussed and analysed across the country. The book's inspiration came from a dinner party during which she overheard the hostess talking about her butler and cook, who kept lodgers and were convinced that one of them was the Ripper. In the novel, the landlady's suspicions grow when she discovers her lodger is a religious fanatic who walks the streets late at night and has an aversion to the engravings of beautiful women in his room. He reads sections of the Bible that rail against women, and returns home with a bloodstained cape. The novel's US version was championed by Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway.

Sources I've read about Belloc Lowndes, including the Wikipedia article, cite two movies based on her novels: The Lodger and Letty Lynton, and neglect to mention The Story of Ivy, which was made into a movie starring Joan Fontaine with the simple title, Ivy. It was on Turner Classic Movies last week. Ivy is a scheming woman who seems quite innocent: she is married (Richard Ney), has a lover (Patric Knowles), and wants another richer man (Herbert Marshall) to replace them both. So, she had to get rid of the husband and current lover and plans what she thinks is the perfect crime. It is an elegant and stylish film, produced by William Cameron Menzies. I won't give away the plot, but you know that crime does not pay--and there are few perfect crimes. According to TCM's article on the movie, this role was originally intended for Joan Fontaine's sister and rival, Olivia de Havilland. Olivia did not want the role because Ivy, as the title card noted is "So Sweet . . . So Beautiful . . .  So Lovely . . . but so utterly EVIL" and she did not want to play such an unsympathetic role.

"That Lady" and Kate O'Brien

I happened to see a facebook post that featured a picture from a film about St. Teresa of Avila with the Princess of Eboli standing next to her and it reminded me of Kate O'Brien's novel, That Lady. The Princess of Eboli, Ana de Mendoza, is also a major character in Verdi's opera, Don Carlo with the great aria, "O Don Fatale"--"O Fatal Gift" (you may hear the late, great Tatiana Troyanos curse that gift, her beauty--here). As the widow of one of King Philip II's favorites, Eboli first attempted to join St. Teresa of Avila's Carmel, a life to which she was entirely unsuited. After leaving the Carmel, she fell in love with Antonio Perez and Philip II was jealous, because he loved Eboli himself. Philip separated the lovers, of course, and imprisoned them.

This website details her life story and the affair that led to her house arrest, finally immured within the walls of her palace prison:

Due to her high position in the courts she had always maintained a good relationship with Prince Felipe who later went on to become King Felipe II, and there were various voices that claimed that she was in fact the King's mistress. Although what indeed was a fact was that once she was widowed she began an intimate relationship with Antonio Perez who was secretary to the King. Antonio was six years older than she and it is not known exactly whether the relationship was purely a question of love, of politics or whether she was just searching for someone to fill the void that existed since her husband's death. 

 

The King meanwhile was madly in love with the Princess of Eboli although he was never able to win her love and when he found out about the relationship between her and Antonio Perez he was enraged and invented some reason for her to be imprisoned firstly in the Tower of Pinto in 1579 and later in the Fort Of Santorcaz. Antonio Perez was also imprisoned in another location. She was deprived of seeing her children and of all her wealths and finally in 1581 sent to the Palace of Pastrana. 

 

It was often said that the melancholic princess would spend many hours staring out from her balcony but in 1590 when Antonio Perez Aragon managed to escape from his prison the King installed bars and shutters on all the doors and windows of the Palace so that Antonio would not be able to either reach her or see her. The wrath and cruelty of the scorned King was supposed to be due to his deep jealousy and even the letters of plea from the Princess herself did nothing to soften him. 

 

She was attended to by three of her servants and her youngest daughter Ana de Silva who stayed with her mother until her death and later went on to become a nun. 

 

After her death in 1592 Ana, the Princess of Eboli, was finally buried next to her husband Ruy in the township of Pastrana. 

Although I have read that it is not that good a movie, I would like to see Olivia de Havilland, in the title role of That Lady, with Paul Scofield as King Philip II, and Gilbert Roland as Antonio Perez. Perhaps Turner Classic Movies will designate Olivia de Havilland as Star of the Month and show it some day! The movie was based upon Kate O"Brien's stage adaptation of the novel; Katharine Cornell played the title role on Broadway in 1949.

Kate O'Brien was an Irish journalist, author, and biographer who was born in 1897 and died in 1974. She wrote several novels--and I went through a Kate O'Brien phase and read them all:

• Without My Cloak (1931)
• The Ante-Room (1934)
• Mary Lavelle (1936)
• Pray for the Wanderer (1938)
• The Land of Spices (1941)
• The Last of Summer (1943)
• That Lady (1946)
• The Flower of May 91953)
• As Music and Splendour (1958)

She also wrote a biography of St. Teresa of Avila and travel books about Ireland and Spain. Her books have gone in and out of style. Virago Modern Classics published many of them in 1980's and Mary Lavelle was made in to a movie in 1998, Talk of Angels, starring Polly Walker (Jane Fairfax in the Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma). Her books are readily available, although I'm not sure how many are still in publishers' catalogs

The Brother and the Curate: The Hollywood Bronte Family

Last night, I watched Devotion, the 1946 Warner Brothers biopic of the Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne--and their brother Branwell, and their father's curate, Mr. Arthur Nichols. The names and the setting of the movie are mostly accurate, but much of the biography is not, of course. I still found it an interesting movie, however, mostly because of the performances of Olivia de Havilland as Charlotte and of Ida Lupino as Emily. The actress (Nancy Coleman) who played Anne Bronte resembled the portrait painted by Branwell, but she is a secondary character.

Charlotte, as portrayed by de Havilland, is almost wilfully unaware of her errors and follies: forcing Emily to go to Brussels; falling in love with Monsieur Heger, the married headmaster of that school; her ambitious drive for literary fame is overwhelming; she consistently errs in interpreting the actions of her father's curate, Mr. Arthur Nicholls (Paul Henreid)--and generally, she does not know what is really going on! De Havilland plays this unself-aware heroine so well that the viewer wants to read her the riot act!

Emily is the real lead in the movie, at least as the trailer, linked above, indicates--she is the real genius, the true lover, the one devoted to her brother's best interests (knowing that London will be too tempting for him), in love with the curate, misunderstood by Charlotte; able to see Charlotte's folly--drawn to the moors, dreaming of death (or Heathcliff?).

In typical Hollywood fashion, the accents vary wildly. Lupino was born in England and de Havilland in Japan of British parents, but Paul Henreid's Austro-Hungarian accent is unremarked and unexplained. As the Reverend Mr. Patrick Bronte's curate, he seems very well off, with an elegant wardrobe--he is depicted as doing good works in the parish, visiting the poor and the sick, but one of his most constant efforts is getting the drunken Branwell home from the pub or the party. Those efforts earn him only animosity from Charlotte--and from Emily at first. The Reverend Mr. Patrick Bronte, played by Montagu Love, is always in his study, preparing a sermon. We never see the inside of Reverend Bronte's church.

Arthur Kennedy as Branwell Bronte is a convincing drunk, although it's not very clear why his sisters are so devoted to him because he is so mocking of their efforts and even of their sacrifices for him. The film completely ignores the fantasy world the sisters and brother developed, nor does it depict the poverty, want, and death the family struggled with--the sisters did not become governess to earn extra money! . Still, it was a fascinating movie to watch for the sake of the two lead actresses, Lupino and de Havilland.