"The Barretts of Wimpole Street" (1957) tells the story of the romance of real-life poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, despite many odds. In 1840's London, the Barrett household is one of fear and unhappiness. Elizabeth, (Jennifer Jones) the oldest child of the family, has been sick and forced to stay in her bedroom for the last several years. Also in the household are her two sisters and five brothers, all of whom are under the thumb of their tyrannical father, Edward (John Gielgud) a widower who found that since he lost the love of his life, he would not allow any of his children to marry either, in particular, Elizabeth, the one daughter who he claims to love. Elizabeth has been corresponding with a young poet Robert Browning (Bill Travers), however, and finds that the more she falls in love with him, the healthier she gets, but the healthier she gets, the more desperate and tyrannical her father gets.
The story as I told it sounds like it could be kind of interesting and fun in a high-drama type way, which is what I was expecting, but it actually was pretty boring. And when it wasn't boring, it was creepy. Gielgud is a great actor of course, and was great as Robert Browning, a man who needed to look up Freud in a couple of decades. His devotion and stranglehold on Elizabeth was actually pretty disturbing, particularly when his desperation grew to a fever pitch at the end of the film. I have never liked Jennifer Jones, and I didn't like her in this movie. I'm not sure what it is about her exactly, other than the fact that I consider her a mediocre actress perhaps it is because she always has this look on her face that is a weird cross between anguish and when you feel a sneeze coming on. With a story as bizarre as this one, so much more could have been done to make this film a good one, but unfortunately it just turned out mediocre at best. 4/10 --Shelly
The story as I told it sounds like it could be kind of interesting and fun in a high-drama type way, which is what I was expecting, but it actually was pretty boring. And when it wasn't boring, it was creepy. Gielgud is a great actor of course, and was great as Robert Browning, a man who needed to look up Freud in a couple of decades. His devotion and stranglehold on Elizabeth was actually pretty disturbing, particularly when his desperation grew to a fever pitch at the end of the film. I have never liked Jennifer Jones, and I didn't like her in this movie. I'm not sure what it is about her exactly, other than the fact that I consider her a mediocre actress perhaps it is because she always has this look on her face that is a weird cross between anguish and when you feel a sneeze coming on. With a story as bizarre as this one, so much more could have been done to make this film a good one, but unfortunately it just turned out mediocre at best. 4/10 --Shelly