Carrie (1952)

Carrie
Directed by William Wyler
Written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz from the novel Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
1952/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Carrie Meeber: When you’re poor, it gets all mixed up. You like the people who are good to you.[/box]

Catch this for a fine performance by Laurence Olivier as a mid-Westerner.

This is a slightly expurgated version of the Dreiser novel.  Carrie (Jennifer Jones) is a small-town girl who comes to Chicago for work and possible marriage.  At first she stays with her sister who has done the necessary and is now keeping house.  Carrie injures herself with a sewing machine at work and is fired.  She knows her sister and husband will not be sympathetic and will continue to expect their rent money.  While she is looking for work she meets one Charlie Drouet (Eddie Albert) a fast-talking traveling salesman.  He more or less tricks her into staying a few nights at his place while he is “away” and soon they are lovers.  His promises to marry her go nowhere.

Charlie does like to show Carrie a good time though and takes her to a fancy restaurant. This is managed by George Hurstwood (Olivier).  George is smitten with Carrie at first glance and sends wine over to the table.  Charlie is a regular at the restaurant and George comes over to visit him ostensibly to offer Charlie theater tickets.  But Charlie will be out of town and suggests that George take Carrie to the theater.  He does and follows this up with a number of other outings.

Carrie, who has been carrying a lot of shame from her illicit relations with Charlie, soon falls for George.  George is madly, in more ways than one, in love with Carrie.  She promises to leave Charlie for him.  But then Charlie returns home and informs Carrie that George is married.  He is on the verge of divorce from his wife, claims George.  But of course his awful wife Julie (Miriam Hopkins) refuses to set him free.  George takes drastic action and tells a number of additional lies to make Carrie his own.

So begins a downward spiral for George Hurstwood.  It looks like he will take Carrie with him until she finally finds work in the theater.

I thought Olivier was really excellent in this one.  He has to run the gamut of emotions and all in an American accent and carried it off quite well I thought.  I can take or leave Jennifer Jones and she was better than usual here.  Albert is always good and Hopkins is at her best when she is evil.

I was an English major in college and for some reason had to study the novel more than once.  I never understood, and still don’t, why Carrie was to blame for anything that happened to George.  He ruins himself for “love” of her but she would have been appalled had she known ten percent of the lies he told and the things he did to get her.  And yet it is clear that somehow Carrie is at fault for being a “bad girl”.  Nonetheless, I recommend this movie.

Carrie was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.

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