Becky Sharp (1935)

Becky Sharp
Directed by Rouben Mamoulian
1935/USA
Pioneer Pictures Corporation
First viewing

[box] “The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name. A polite public will no more bear to read an authentic description of vice than a truly-refined English or American female will permit the word ‘breeches’ to be pronounced in her chaste hearing. And yet, madam, both are walking the world before our faces every day without much shocking us. If you were to blush every time they went by, what complexions you would have!” ― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair[/box]

Rouben Mamoulian’s adaptation of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair is chiefly notable for being the first feature film shot in the three-strip Technicolor process.  Unfortunately, the print available to me was too degraded for appreciation of the new technology and the film itself is pretty dire.

Orphan Becky Sharp (Miriam Hopkins) leaves school with only her cunning to provide for her.  She marries true love Rawdon Crawley (Alan Mowbray) but uses her feminine wiles to bilk men and others into allowing them to live for “nothing a year.”  Will she get her comeuppance?  With Frances Dee as Amelia Sedley, Nigel Bruce as Jos Sedley, and Cedric Hardwicke as the Marquis of Steyne.

Anyone who was watching this movie in a vacuum might think Rouben Mamoulian, Miriam Hopkins, and William Thackeray were a bunch of talentless hacks.  I cannot imagine what happened to Mamoulian, who previously used such fluid and interesting camera work.  I can only imagine that the big Technicolor camera got in his way and caused this film to be so static and stagey.  Miriam Hopkins is just way over the top, winking at the audience, shrieking and mugging constantly.  Finally, the dark satire of the novel has been lost and replaced by a soap opera.  I understand that UCLA has restored the print and, if it ever becomes available, the movie might be interesting as a historical time capsule.  Until then, we seem to be stuck with a muddy public domain print filled with pops and crackles in the sound.

Trailer

Before and after restoration – unfortunately, I saw the “before”