Details
Movie Description
ANTHONY ADVERSE is a sprawling, episodic, adventurous costume drama adapted from the Hervey Allen best-selling novel. The story follows the globetrotting saga of Anthony Adverse, the illegitimate heir to the fortune of his cruel stepfather, Don Luis. Luis leaves the boy in the hands of the church after killing his real father, and the church in turn deposits Anthony into the hands of his grandfather, a wealthy merchant. Anthony, now played by the debonair Fredric March, grows up to love the beautiful Angela (Olivia de Havilland), daughter of his grandfather's cook. But neither romance nor his rightful inheritance proves easy to achieve as Angela becomes a glamorous opera star and the mistress of Napoleon while Don Luis and his new wife, Faith (Gale Sondergaard, in an Oscar-winning performance), conspire against him. In spite of all the intricacies of the plot, it is the plushness of the production, the beautiful cinematography, and the mellifluous score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold that allow this epic picture to stand the test of time.
Synopsis
This intriguing story of a young man's globetrotting adventures during the time of Napoleon and his struggle for personal and financial success features an excellent cast, wonderful music, and great cinematographym which helped make this a blockbuster of its time.
Film Notes
Theatrical release: August 26, 1936, amid much hype--the film was enormously popular and garnered a number of Academy Awards.
Screenwriter Sheridan Gibney had to navigate through a 1,200-page original novel to write the script for ANTHONY ADVERSE.
ANTHONY ADVERSE was the film debut for actress Gale Sondergaard, who would receive and Academy Award for her part. Sondergaard was a theatrically trained actress with limited interest in the cinema, but director LeRoy decided to cast as soon as he laid eyes upon her. Her cinema career, however, would remain limited--her husband, Herbert Biberman, was one of the Hollywood Ten, and the besmirching affect was transferred onto her.
ANTHONY ADVERSE cost two million dollars, making it one of the most expensive pictures in history at the time of its release.
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