Desirée

This film is about Désirée Clary, a common French woman who was the one-time fiancée of Napolean and who later became queen of Norway and Sweden. She had a very remarkable life and it SHOULD have been an exciting film, though I found the movie to be very mannered and subdued...too subdued. As a result, it is not an especially exciting film...and it should have been. It follows her from her first meeting Napoleon and moves up through he ascending the thrones.

Désirée Clary is played by Jean Simmons, Napoleon by Marlon Brando and her husband by Michael Rennie. The film is also sumptuous to look at--with lovely sets and in full Cinemascope color. What it does not talk about at all are the marital infidelities by Napoleon, Josephine as well as Désirée's husband--all which could have made the movie much more interesting. So it's pretty but sanitized...and a bit dull because of this. It also just never sparked my interest at all and much of it is because the film is too episodic. Her life might better be told as a mini-series instead.