Carrie **** (1952, Laurence Olivier, Jennifer Jones, Miriam Hopkins, Eddie Albert, Basil Ruysdael, Ray Teal, Barry Kelley) – Classic Movie Review 5096

Producer-director William Wyler’s capable, weepie film of Theodore Dreiser’s novel Sister Carrie boasts one of Laurence Olivier’s most distinguished performances as George Hurstwood, the restaurateur who leaves his wife Julie (Miriam Hopkins) for farm girl turned actress Carrie Meeber (Jennifer Jones).

The edge of Dreiser’s pointed turn-of-the-19th-century story is blunted, and the film marred by the Paramount studio-required elisions in essential scenes, and by actors working in the shadow of Olivier.

But it is a fine portrait of doomed love, well written by Ruth Goetz and Augustus Goetz, and a beautiful film too, thanks to Victor Milner’s black and white cinematography (though Technicolor would have been welcome) and the splendid art direction by Hal Pereira and Roland Anderson.

Also in the cast are Eddie Albert, Basil Ruysdael, Ray Teal, Barry Kelley, Mary Murphy, William Reynolds, Sara Berner, Walter Baldwin, Harry Hayden, Dorothy Adams, Jacqueline DeWit, Melinda Plowman, Lester Sharpe, Don Beddoe, Royal Dano, James Flavin, Harlan Briggs and Ralph Sanford.

Paramount called it plain Carrie fearing audiences would think original title Sister Carrie was the story of a nun.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5096

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