The Waterloo Bridge movies were based on a play by Robert E. Sherwood, written in 1930. The play itself is in fact based on an incident in the authors life: namely, he was an American who joined the Canadian Army during the First World War. When based in London he had a brief affair/fell in love with an American girl, who turned out to be a street-walker. He never forgot her. I couldn't find any details whether she actually died at that time or not.
This movie works on so many levels for me it is not possible to really cover them all. Of course it isn't perfect, as there has to be some artistic license taken here and there, but I think it is Vivien Leigh's best movie performance, and Bob Taylor's best also. They are just about perfect for each other. As it was made in 1940 it was severely affected by the Production Code in what it was able to say and show (apparently the 1931 version, which I haven't seen, was a lot more forthright about the prostitution theme, for instance), making it necessary to invent an explanation as to why Myra had turned to hooking (in the play and the 1931 film version she was already a hooker when she met Roy and the reasons for it are unexplained).
Still, the story and the performances are great. When watching the movie I think sometimes I just want to shake Myra, to make her just be honest and truthful, and let the chips fall where they may. But it's important to try to keep the movie in the context of happening early in the twentieth century in a class structured United Kingdom. The attitudes of the guests in the Scottish ball sequence attest to the fact that the love affair is doomed - even if Roy, his mother, and the Duke are prepared to accept Myra (and remember at that stage the Duke is unaware of Myra's past as a working girl)it is obvious that most of the rest of the Scottish aristocracy won't. It is obvious that even if Myra married Roy, life would be a nightmare of judgement and recrimination, and she couldn't ever be happy.
The complaints about the accents being wrong on these pages are irritating - remember Roy was based on an American in the Canadian Army, and anyway many of the aristocracy in Scotland are of English heritage (they don't all talk with a brogue you know). And I'm not so sure that employment for young women in London in 1914-15 would be as available as people are suggesting. The film makes quite an issue about the girls' search for and failure to find work - any work, such in teas shops etc. Definitely it would have been easier for women to find work in the munitions industries or in nursing later in the war - but early in the war not ALL men had volunteered and the war was not yet draining the life blood of the nation. It finally took military conscription to keep the meat grinder in Europe fed.
I prefer to focus on the beauty (in fact sometimes the tragic beauty) in the movie, rather than it's faults. Surely the Auld Lang Syne scene in the Candlelight Club is one of the most beautiful, romantic things in movie-making. Just as Myra going under the ambulance's wheels at the end is one of the saddest tragedies. His desperate search for her before her suicide only compounds the tragedy. Roy still having her lucky charm more than 20 years later was a nice touch. It looked as though he might have never married, perhaps as he could never love any one else as he had loved her. His fond remembrances for a time and a love long ago make it even sadder.
One thing that keeps coming back to me is how, when Vivien/Myra stares straight ahead with those beautiful blue eyes, unblinking and deep in thought and emotion (this happens several times in the film) it made me think of Olivier. It is the exact same look he used to use, maybe a technique they shared? Richard
This movie works on so many levels for me it is not possible to really cover them all. Of course it isn't perfect, as there has to be some artistic license taken here and there, but I think it is Vivien Leigh's best movie performance, and Bob Taylor's best also. They are just about perfect for each other. As it was made in 1940 it was severely affected by the Production Code in what it was able to say and show (apparently the 1931 version, which I haven't seen, was a lot more forthright about the prostitution theme, for instance), making it necessary to invent an explanation as to why Myra had turned to hooking (in the play and the 1931 film version she was already a hooker when she met Roy and the reasons for it are unexplained).
Still, the story and the performances are great. When watching the movie I think sometimes I just want to shake Myra, to make her just be honest and truthful, and let the chips fall where they may. But it's important to try to keep the movie in the context of happening early in the twentieth century in a class structured United Kingdom. The attitudes of the guests in the Scottish ball sequence attest to the fact that the love affair is doomed - even if Roy, his mother, and the Duke are prepared to accept Myra (and remember at that stage the Duke is unaware of Myra's past as a working girl)it is obvious that most of the rest of the Scottish aristocracy won't. It is obvious that even if Myra married Roy, life would be a nightmare of judgement and recrimination, and she couldn't ever be happy.
The complaints about the accents being wrong on these pages are irritating - remember Roy was based on an American in the Canadian Army, and anyway many of the aristocracy in Scotland are of English heritage (they don't all talk with a brogue you know). And I'm not so sure that employment for young women in London in 1914-15 would be as available as people are suggesting. The film makes quite an issue about the girls' search for and failure to find work - any work, such in teas shops etc. Definitely it would have been easier for women to find work in the munitions industries or in nursing later in the war - but early in the war not ALL men had volunteered and the war was not yet draining the life blood of the nation. It finally took military conscription to keep the meat grinder in Europe fed.
I prefer to focus on the beauty (in fact sometimes the tragic beauty) in the movie, rather than it's faults. Surely the Auld Lang Syne scene in the Candlelight Club is one of the most beautiful, romantic things in movie-making. Just as Myra going under the ambulance's wheels at the end is one of the saddest tragedies. His desperate search for her before her suicide only compounds the tragedy. Roy still having her lucky charm more than 20 years later was a nice touch. It looked as though he might have never married, perhaps as he could never love any one else as he had loved her. His fond remembrances for a time and a love long ago make it even sadder.
One thing that keeps coming back to me is how, when Vivien/Myra stares straight ahead with those beautiful blue eyes, unblinking and deep in thought and emotion (this happens several times in the film) it made me think of Olivier. It is the exact same look he used to use, maybe a technique they shared? Richard