Vanessa, Her Love Story

Vanessa is an amazing film. Every actor is pitch perfect, the production values are top draw, yet the film fails to entertain. We have an opera with full audience, a garden party with hundreds, a horse parade with thousands, a fort in Egypt, mansions in various locations. This might have been MGM's most expensive film of 1935. We have Helen Hayes, perfect in the role as loving, long suffering, and duty bound. Her scenes with Otto Kruger are exceptional. Few pairings have been more affecting. I've written of Kruger's ability to do any acting task. Here he succeeds brilliantly. Montgomery is usually is a bit shallow for my taste. Here he is properly wild and stalwart. The rest of the cast is populated by wonderful character actors, doing their jobs particularly well, especially May Robson and Henry Stevenson. The large cast includes several favorites, including Violet Kemble Cooper, Ethel Griffies, and Lionel Belmore. Since everyone does their job so well, we must credit the director, William K. Howard, with an excellent job. Checking his filmography, I see no outstanding films, but a few good ones. It is difficult to imagine that MGM would entrust such a prestigious and expensive film to his care. And yet, the film ultimately disappoints. This is clearly the fault of the screen play. For a company like MGM to approve it, reflects badly on the studio. Of course, I'll watch it again, but only to see Hayes and Kruger working so brilliantly together.