BITTER SWEET

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CREDITS

1940, 94 minutes, Technicolor.
Producer, Victor Saville; Director, W.S. Van Dyke; Screenplay, Lesser Samuels; Cinematography, Oliver Marsh and Allen Davey; Art Direction, Cedric Gibbons and John S. Detlie; Choreography, Ernst Matray.

CAST

Sarah Millick, Jeanette MacDonald; Carl Linden, Nelson Eddy; Baron Von Tranisch, George Sanders; Max, Felix Bressart; Lord Shayne, Ian Hunter; Mrs. Millick, Fay Holden; Herr Schlick, Sig Rumann; Market Keeper, Herman Bing; Ernst, Curt Bois; Harry Daventry, Edward Ashley; Manon, Veda Ann Borg; Dolly, Lynne Carver; Jane, Diana Lewis; Lady Daventry, Janet Beecher; Herr Wyler, Charles Judels; Mama Luden, Greta Meyer.

SONGS

I'll See You Again; Zigeuner; If You Could Only Come with Me; What Is Love?; Today; Love In Any Language; Dear Little Cafe; Kiss Me; Ladies of the Town by Noel Coward; Una Voce Poca Fa by Rossini.

PLOT SYNOPSIS

"Just listen to their rapturous harmonies and you'll know that Victorian lass Sarah and her dashing music teacher Carl belong together. So on the eve of Sarah's marriage to a priggish Londoner, she elopes with her mentor to Vienna. . .Carl is unable to sell his music, so the duo starve for art and live on love. Passions flare as Carl defends Sarah in a duel with a lecherous Baron - and sets in motion the movie's touching conclusion: Sarah performing Carl's operetta before a cheering audience."
- Liner Notes from Turner/MGM-UA Videotape

NOTES

"Noel Coward wept when he saw Bitter Sweet - not because he was so moved, but because he thought it was so dreadful."
- Clive Hirschhorn, The Hollywood Musical

"It's now chiefly eye-and-ear entertainment, with the original sentimental charm and romance missing."
- Variety

"This is by no means the worst of the MacDonald-Eddy love-duet films. . .but this isn't one of the rare ones redeemed by high spirits, either. It's bad enough: you pass the time watching the actors ladling on their characterizations."
- Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights At The Movies


ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS:
Cinematography
Art Direction

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