Bitter Sweet **** (1933, Anna Neagle, Fernand Gravey, Miles Mander, Ivy St Helier) – Classic Movie Review 11,323

Anna Neagle in Bitter Sweet (1933).

Herbert Wilcox: ‘Surely a better musical play has never been written’.

Director Herbert Wilcox’s 1933 musical film Bitter Sweet stars Anna Neagle as a dancer called Sarah Linden, now a gray-haired old woman, who tells a young girl how she wooed and married a violinist and inveterate gambler (Fernand Gravet) who was killed by a gambling opponent. The girl is about to marry an obnoxious man though in love with a musician.

This is the popular Thirties British Wilcox-Neagle version of Noël Coward’s smashing operetta of doomed young lovers in 1875 Vienna, which includes two of the master’s best songs, ‘I’ll See You Again’ and ‘If Love Were All’. Happily, Ivy St Helier records her West End performance of Manon la Crevette.

Coward was sweet about this version but bitter about the 1940 American remake of Bitter Sweet with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, calling it a ‘vulgar orgy of tenth-rate endeavour’.

Early sound techniques and the black and white are drawbacks but the 1933 Bitter Sweet is a bit of a forgotten heirloom gem.

Also in the cast are Ivy St Helier, Miles Mander, Esme Percy, Hugh Williams, Pat Paterson, Kay Hammond, Clifford Heatherley, Miles Malleson, Patrick Ludlow, Norma Whalley, Victor Rietti, Gibb McLaughlin, Syd Crossley, Alan Napier, and Fred Schwartz.

Michael Wilding, a future Neagle co-star, is an extra. Lew Stone is the Bandleader, Nat Gonella is the Trumpeter and Al Bowlly is the Singer.

It is written by Lydia Hayward (uncredited) and Herbert Wilcox (uncredited) from the play by Noël Coward, and with additional dialogue by Monckton Hoffe, in a screenplay reasonably faithful to the original story.

Bitter Sweet is directed by Herbert Wilcox, runs 93 minutes, is made by Herbert Wilcox Productions and British and Dominions Film Corporation, is released by United Artists, is written by Lydia Hayward (uncredited), Herbert Wilcox (uncredited) and Monckton Hoffe (additional dialogue), based on the play by Noël Coward, is shot by Freddie Young, is produced by Herbert Wilcox, is scored by Roy Robertson (musical director) and Lew Stone (modern music), with music and lyrics by Noël Coward, and designed by Lawrence P Williams.

It was made at Elstree Studios.

Wilcox said the film did not go into profit despite its charms and quality and the vogue for operetta films at the time. He wrote: ‘It must have been my fault, for surely a better musical play has never been written… perhaps, however, the story is rather too sad for a film.’

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,323

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