| Bitter Sweet | |
|---|---|
&sq=&lang=&file=File:Bitter_Sweet_-_Title.jpg) Title card | |
| Directed by | W. S. Van Dyke |
| Screenplay by | Lesser Samuels |
| Story by | Lesser Samuels |
| Based on | Bitter Sweet 1929 operetta by Noël Coward |
| Produced by | Victor Saville |
| Starring | Jeanette MacDonald Nelson Eddy George Sanders |
| Cinematography | Oliver T. Marsh Allen M. Davey |
| Edited by | Harold F. Kress |
| Music by | Gus Kahn |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Loew's Inc. |
Release date |
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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]
- ^ a b Turk, Edward Baron "Hollywood Diva: A Biography of Jeanette MacDonald" (University of California Press, 1998)
- ^ "NY Times: Bitter Sweet". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2012. Archived from the original on October 17, 2012. Retrieved December 13, 2008.
- ^ 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
- ^ Barber, John. "Now Noël Coward takes his bitter-sweet revenge on Hollywood", The Daily Express, November 29, 1951, p. 3