After the tremendous acclaim Vivien Leigh received from Gone With the Wind topped off with that Oscar, there was tremendous interest in what her next project would be. After working so well with Gable in Gone With the Wind, MGM decided to team her with another of their romantic heart throbs Robert Taylor. What I don't understand is how as a newcomer to the USA, Leigh rated top billing over one of MGM's biggest box office draws. In any event Taylor must have conceded the top spot to her and would have if asked because he was always the most agreeable of contract players.
Like Gable in Mutiny on the Bounty, Taylor does not even attempt a hint of a British accent. The film opens in 1939 a few days after the second World War starts. Taylor, now a field grade officer finds himself on Waterloo Bridge in London and he starts to think back to the first World War and his lost love who he met during a Zeppelin attack on London.
That lost love was Vivien Leigh, an aspiring ballerina under the tutelage of Maria Ouspenskaya, one formidable old woman. The film is Taylor and Leigh's story. They are as romantic a pair of young lovers as has ever been seen on the silver screen.
Leigh is more fragile here, more true to her own life, than she was as the independent and forceful Scarlett O'Hara. One cannot ever imagine Scarlett making the choices that Leigh's Myra Lester makes in Waterloo Bridge.
Interesting how audiences accept Taylor as British without him even attempting an accent. The old American as Canadian gambit isn't even used to justify Taylor's presence in a British story. Shows that attractive and capable players can cover a certain amount of artistic sin.
Like Gable in Mutiny on the Bounty, Taylor does not even attempt a hint of a British accent. The film opens in 1939 a few days after the second World War starts. Taylor, now a field grade officer finds himself on Waterloo Bridge in London and he starts to think back to the first World War and his lost love who he met during a Zeppelin attack on London.
That lost love was Vivien Leigh, an aspiring ballerina under the tutelage of Maria Ouspenskaya, one formidable old woman. The film is Taylor and Leigh's story. They are as romantic a pair of young lovers as has ever been seen on the silver screen.
Leigh is more fragile here, more true to her own life, than she was as the independent and forceful Scarlett O'Hara. One cannot ever imagine Scarlett making the choices that Leigh's Myra Lester makes in Waterloo Bridge.
Interesting how audiences accept Taylor as British without him even attempting an accent. The old American as Canadian gambit isn't even used to justify Taylor's presence in a British story. Shows that attractive and capable players can cover a certain amount of artistic sin.