Bitter Sweet (1940 film)

Bitter Sweet

Title card
Directed by W. S. Van Dyke
Produced by Victor Saville
Written by Lesser Samuels
Based on Bitter Sweet
1929 operetta
by Noël Coward
Starring Jeanette MacDonald
Nelson Eddy
George Sanders
Music by Gus Kahn
Cinematography Oliver T. Marsh
Edited by Harold F. Kress
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates
  • November 8, 1940 (1940-11-08)
Running time
 94 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $1.1 million[1]
Box office $2.2 million[1]

Bitter Sweet is a 1940 American Technicolor musical film directed by W. S. Van Dyke, based on the operetta Bitter Sweet by Noël Coward. It was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Cinematography and the other for Best Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons and John S. Detlie.[2]

The film is based on Coward's stage operetta, which was a hit in 1929 in London. It was filmed twice, first in 1933 in black-and-white (in Britain, with Anna Neagle and Fernand Gravet in the leading roles). The 1940 film is much cut and rewritten, removing much of the operetta's irony. The opening and closing scenes are cut, focusing the film squarely upon the relationship between MacDonald's character, Sarah, and her music teacher, Carl Linden. The opening scene was a flash forward, in which Sarah appears as an elderly woman recalling how she fell in love. One reason for dropping this scene is that it had been appropriated for MGM's 1937 film Maytime. Coward disliked the 1940 film and vowed that no more of his shows would be filmed in Hollywood.[3] In 1951 he told The Daily Express, "I was saving up Bitter Sweet as an investment for my old age. After MGM's dreadful film I can never revive it" on stage.[4]

Plot

Set in late 19th century Vienna, the story focuses on the romance between music teacher Carl Linden (Nelson Eddy) and his prize pupil Sarah Milick (Jeanette MacDonald).[5]

Cast

Soundtrack

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Turk, Edward Baron "Hollywood Diva: A Biography of Jeanette MacDonald" (University of California Press, 1998)
  2. ↑ "NY Times: Bitter Sweet". NY Times. Retrieved December 13, 2008.
  3. ↑ Dugan, Eleanor Knowles, John Cocchi and J. Peter Bergman. The Films of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, pp. 399–400, Grand Cyrus Press (2011) ISBN 0979099455
  4. ↑ Barber, John. "Now Noël Coward takes his bitter-sweet revenge on Hollywood", The Daily Express, November 29, 1951, p. 3
  5. ↑ "Bitter Sweet". allrovi. Retrieved August 14, 2011.

External links

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