Associate producer: Lee Garmes. Producer: Alexander Korda.
Copyright 12 September 1941 by Alexander Korda Films, Inc. An Alexander Korda Production, released through United Artists. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 18 September 1941 (ran 2 weeks). U.S. release: 26 September 1941. U.K. release: 16 February 1942. Australian release: 16 April 1942. Running times: 104 minutes (USA), 98 minutes (UK & Aust).
NOTES: A partial re-make of Duvivier's own 1937 Un Carnet de Bal which starred Marie Bell, Francoise Rosay, Harry Baur, Pierre Blanchar, Fernandel, Louis Jouvet and Raimu.
Rozsa was nominated for an Academy Award for his Music Scoring but lost out to Bernard Herrmann's All That Money Can Buy.
Despite producer Korda's efforts to showcase his wife by employing some of the finest technical talents available in 1941 Hollywood, the movie was not a financial success, barely recovering its expensive production costs.
Last film of John Halliday. (He died in Honolulu on 17 October 1947).
COMMENT: A wonderfully Gallic tale, full of ironies and surprises, stylishly embellished with some of the most lustrously photographed images we have ever seen. The sets too are absolute marvels of tasteful extravagance, and there's a hauntingly evocative music score by Miklos Rozsa. In short, on the technical side, just about everything needed for a movie masterpiece: a promisingly novel and potentially entertaining idea, a producer with money and acumen, a director with flair and imagination, a set designer of extraordinary intelligence and sweep, and a cameraman of such expertise and skill that the movie is always inventively lit through the eyes of both beauty and atmosphere.
Despite some most enjoyable set-pieces - including a contrast between Oberon's first ball as she romantically remembers it and as it actually was; and a rousing rendition of "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp" at Tony Pastor's Saloon, complete with singing waiters, a comic tenor, a be-tighted chorus and jostlingly enthusiastic patrons, all filmed in one crowded take as the camera pans from the stage to Oberon's back table - the movie comes slightly unstuck in its script and its cast.
Mrs Alexander Korda enacts the title role, which gives her not only the lion's share of the action but an off-camera commentary as well. Unfortunately she is something of a chatterbox. She never stops talking. This makes her characterization rather wearying. It's true that a man can put up with a foolish, chattering woman if he finds her attractive, so your enjoyment of Lydia will largely depend on whether you're an Oberon fan or otherwise.
It would be a pity to miss Lydia on Oberon's account, because it has so many other good things going for it, not least a very credible performance by that much-maligned actor George Reeves as a boorish football player. And of course any movie with John Halliday is always worth seeing, even when his role is fairly small as here. Many would say the same about Edna May Oliver. And I thought Alan Marshal was adequate, particularly if we remember that all but his last entrance portray Oberon's vision of him, which was certainly a long way from the Richard Mason of reality.
In short, a most interesting and fascinating movie which, despite its shortcomings, doesn't seem to deserve its current neglect.
NOTES: A partial re-make of Duvivier's own 1937 Un Carnet de Bal which starred Marie Bell, Francoise Rosay, Harry Baur, Pierre Blanchar, Fernandel, Louis Jouvet and Raimu.
Rozsa was nominated for an Academy Award for his Music Scoring but lost out to Bernard Herrmann's All That Money Can Buy.
Despite producer Korda's efforts to showcase his wife by employing some of the finest technical talents available in 1941 Hollywood, the movie was not a financial success, barely recovering its expensive production costs.
Last film of John Halliday. (He died in Honolulu on 17 October 1947).
COMMENT: A wonderfully Gallic tale, full of ironies and surprises, stylishly embellished with some of the most lustrously photographed images we have ever seen. The sets too are absolute marvels of tasteful extravagance, and there's a hauntingly evocative music score by Miklos Rozsa. In short, on the technical side, just about everything needed for a movie masterpiece: a promisingly novel and potentially entertaining idea, a producer with money and acumen, a director with flair and imagination, a set designer of extraordinary intelligence and sweep, and a cameraman of such expertise and skill that the movie is always inventively lit through the eyes of both beauty and atmosphere.
Despite some most enjoyable set-pieces - including a contrast between Oberon's first ball as she romantically remembers it and as it actually was; and a rousing rendition of "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp" at Tony Pastor's Saloon, complete with singing waiters, a comic tenor, a be-tighted chorus and jostlingly enthusiastic patrons, all filmed in one crowded take as the camera pans from the stage to Oberon's back table - the movie comes slightly unstuck in its script and its cast.
Mrs Alexander Korda enacts the title role, which gives her not only the lion's share of the action but an off-camera commentary as well. Unfortunately she is something of a chatterbox. She never stops talking. This makes her characterization rather wearying. It's true that a man can put up with a foolish, chattering woman if he finds her attractive, so your enjoyment of Lydia will largely depend on whether you're an Oberon fan or otherwise.
It would be a pity to miss Lydia on Oberon's account, because it has so many other good things going for it, not least a very credible performance by that much-maligned actor George Reeves as a boorish football player. And of course any movie with John Halliday is always worth seeing, even when his role is fairly small as here. Many would say the same about Edna May Oliver. And I thought Alan Marshal was adequate, particularly if we remember that all but his last entrance portray Oberon's vision of him, which was certainly a long way from the Richard Mason of reality.
In short, a most interesting and fascinating movie which, despite its shortcomings, doesn't seem to deserve its current neglect.