The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957)

For whatever reason, TCM shows the 1934 Fredric March version of The Barretts of Wimpole Street relatively regularly, while the 1957 remake shows up rather rarely. The TCM schedule lists the remake for tomorrow at noon, so now is your chance to watch.

Jennifer Jones plays Elizabeth Barrett, a name you probably recognize because of her marriage to Robert Browning and her sonnet beginning "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways" which is used, along with several other poems, during the course of the movie. Anyhow, in this movie, Elizabeth has yet to marry Robert. She's still an invalid living at home with her widowed father Edward (John Gielgud), her passel of siblings, and her beloved dog Flush in a fashionable London home in 1845.

Dad, for whatever reason, seems to have it in for all his children, specifically doing everything he can to keep his daughters from marrying, which seems nuts because what are they going to do once he dies? Elizabeth's kid sister Henrietta (Virginia McKenna) has a lover in army captain Surtees Cook (Vernon Gray), but she can only see him in brief trysts whenever she's able to escape the house; Cook for his part stands around outside the house pining after Henrietta.

Elizabeth has been writing those poems, reading the poems of Robert Browning (Bill Travers), and even corresponding by letter with Browning. Eventually, Robert gets so curious that he goes to see Elizabeth. Fortunately, her father is away on business, because boy will he be pissed when he finds out! Indeed, Dad is so controlling that when he learns of both Elizabeth's and Henrietta's boyfriends, he buys a house out in the country so that he can move his daughters there and keep suitors and friends from seeing them.

This version of The Barretts of Wimpole Street is helped by its British provenance, using almost entirely a British cast aside from Jones. Gielgud is excellent as the father from hell, although I never quite figured out just why he became such an embittered, nasty man. He says Elizabeth was the only child born of love, but I wonder whether the other siblings weren't actually his and they couldn't say that because of the Production Code. Jones and Travers are a bit weak, with Jones overacting and Travers not having the heft for the part of Browning. Production values are uniformly lovely thanks especially with the color and widescreen cinematography.

I was surprised to see the MGM logo show up, since the movie isn't on DVD. I would have figured that an MGM movie would have gotten released courtesy of the Warner Archive Collection, much as the 1934 version did. I'm guessing that being produced by MGM's British unit might have had something to do with this. So tomorrow's TCM showing will be your rare chance to see it.