The Deep Blue Sea (1955)

Anatole Litvak: The Deep Blue Sea (GB 1955) with Kenneth More (Freddie Page) and Vivien Leigh (Hester Collyer / Hester Page).

Profondo come il mare / Syvä kuin meri / Kärlek utan nåd.

    GB 1955. Prod.: Anatole Litvak per London Film Productions, Ltd., Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. 

    Director: Anatole Litvak. Sog.: dalla pièce omonima (1952) di Terence Rattigan. Scen.: Terence Rattigan. F.: Jack Hildyard. M.: A. S. Bates. Scgf.: Vincent Korda. Mus.: Malcolm Arnold. Int.: Vivien Leigh (Hester Collyer/Hester Page), Kenneth More (Freddie Page), Eric Portman (Miller), Emlyn Williams (Sir William Collyer), Moira Lister (Dawn Maxwell), Arthur Hill (Jackie Jackson), Dandy Nichols (Mrs. Elton), Jimmy Hanley (Dicer Durston). 98’. Bn.

    Finnish premieres of Terence Rattigan's play (Syvä sininen meri / Rakastan sinua): 1954 Porin Teatteri, 1955 Kotkan Kaupunginteatteri.

    Helsinki premiere: 17 May 1957 Ritz, distributed by O.Y. Fox Films A.B.

    DCP from: The British Film Institute

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Journeys Into Night: The World of Anatole Litvak.

    Viewed at Jolly Cinema, 28 June 2024

The saying "between the devil and the deep blue sea" means two impossible alternatives.

I have also blogged about Terence Davies: The Deep Blue Sea (2011) with Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale.

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024): " This rarest of all Anatole Litvak films is about Hester, a middle-aged woman whose suicide attempt at the beginning of the story sparks off two flashbacks, one from the point of view of the upper-class husband she has abandoned and the other from the view of the younger, capricious ex-RAF pilot for whom she has left her husband. Back to the present, the film revolves around her desperate attempt to win back her lover, only to realise she is yearning for something she can’t have. "

" After a deal was struck between producer Alexander Korda and Fox, The Deep Blue Sea was adapted from a famous play of the same name by Terence Rattigan who also wrote the script under Litvak’s supervision. More static than usual for a Litvak film, he overcomes the limitation of his first attempt at CinemaScope (a first for British cinema too) by being creative with the chamber drama, splitting the screen into equal parts using doors and other verticals, for example. He conveys a stifling world of failed dreams (a doctor who has turned bookie, a jobless and meddlesome actress) with an emotional impact somehow stronger than Terence Davies’ 2011 version. "

" When Marlene Dietrich turned down the role of Hester, Vivien Leigh, who hadn’t appeared in a film since 1951 but had a long friendship with Litvak dating back to the late 1930s, was selected. Everyone said Leigh was too beautiful for the role of a woman who was intended to be unattractive, but she turned out to be convincing as her own increasingly problematic mental illness resonated through the character she portrayed. Kenneth More, as the lover and the only actor from the original London production of the play, proved more popular and won the best actor award at the Venice Film Festival. "

" Litvak shows unconstrained impulses without making them look pathetic. There’s no malice of intent in the way characters hurt each other but things always fall in the wrong places. When hope wanes, the dust of memories obscures it beyond recognition. There’s a profound sadness to the sense of love ebbing away, scene after scene. Litvak’s treatment is artful. " Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024)

AA: Anatole Litvak's The Deep Blue Sea is an adaptation of Terence Rattigan's popular 1952 play. It is still in the repertory. I have previously seen Terence Davies's 2011 adaptation, a labour of love for the remarkable director who kept getting better till the end. This spring I caught his last movie, Benediction, his masterpiece.

A mysterious malaise lingers in the atmosphere of The Deep Blue Sea, an inertia and a passivity. When I saw the Terence Davies adaptation, I blamed the lethargia on the director to whose strengths an irresistible dynamic drive does not belong. But the same apathy exists also in Anatole Litvak's movie, and now I guess it might stem from Rattigan.

Perhaps the apathy is not a drawback at all but the very theme of the play. The Deep Blue Sea takes place after the Second World War. England has won the war not least thanks to its victorious and valiant spirit. It was a good war. But a paralyzing lethargy has spread afterwards. The dashing Freddie Page (Kenneth More) has turned into an alcoholic. Like after WWI, also after WWII there was a Lost Generation, and Freddie belongs those disoriented souls.

The protagonist is his wife Hester Page (Vivien Leigh), a passionate woman full of life and a yearning for love. She has remained childless in two marriages. Her first husband, Sir William Collier (Emlyn Williams), is a High Court judge, totally understanding, compassionate and considerate, always willing to help, only he ceased to be a man to his wife. Freddie was welcome to join Hester. There was no triangle drama. 

As the irresponsible Freddie is getting estranged from her, Hester attempts suicide, but there is a guardian angel: Mr. Miller (Eric Portman), an ex-doctor who has been struck off the register for an undisclosed reason. In the original play the reason was hinted to be homosexuality, but I don't remember how Miller (Karl Johnson) was treated in Davies's film and I did not register this aspect in Litvak's movie. Eric Portman is at his best in this role, and if Miller and Hester get close, I'm happy for both.

I was thinking about one of the best books I have read in the last few years: the memoirs of the philosopher G. H. von Wright, My Life as I Remember It. Von Wright was the closest collaborator of Ludwig Wittgenstein and became his successor at the University of Cambridge in 1948. At this height of his career he decided to return to Finland. Von Wright was struck by a suffocating lack of spirit and enthusiasm in England. In contrast, he found an irresistible drive for reconstruction and regeneration in tiny Finland which had survived the war with devastating losses. Perhaps The Deep Blue Sea catches the atmosphere which von Wright decided to escape?

Anatole Litvak treats The Deep Blue Sea largely as a filmed play, like Alfred Hitchcock adapted Rope and Dial M for Murder and like William Wyler created his adaptations of The Little Foxes and The Heiress: very much in a single interior location, but with an ingenious mise-en-scène and dynamic camera movements. An approach that Bazin might have approved - Litvak uses CinemaScope the way Wyler used deep focus. Litvak's CinemaScope has also an affinity with Gance's Polyvision triptych solutions: there are three clearly separate fields of vision which are simultaneously meaningful.

The DCP has been created from a vintage viewing print carrying its vinegar syndrome credentials with pride: a dilapidated print, colour on the verge of disappearing, blurry and hazy, sound humming and going off at times. Genuine patina of a vintage deal.

SOPHISTICATED LADY

US 1952. Director: Duke Goldstone, Int.: Louie Bellson, Harry Carney, Duke Ellington, Duke Ellington Orchestra, Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith, Prod.: Snader Telescriptions. DCP. 4’. Bn.

    From: Library of Congress

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Recovered and Restored.

    AA: A straight Snader Telescription record of the Duke Ellington evergreen.