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Spoilers (6)
Reportedly, Bette Davis had an affair with director Anatole Litvak while he was still married to Miriam Hopkins. This led to a life-long mutual hatred between the two actresses and added to their on-screen chemistry in their two films together, The Old Maid and Old Acquaintance.
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Contrary to his screen image, 'Charles Boyer' was short, paunchy and had a receding hairline. When Bette Davis first saw him, he was out of costume, so she did not recognize him and tried to have him removed from the set.
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Based on the true story of the Duc de Choiseul-Praslin, a French politician who was accused of the brutal murder of his wife Fanny Sebastiani in 1848. Praslin committed suicide via poison while on house arrest, subsequently causing the murder trial to be annulled. To this day, the murder remains one of France's most famous "unsolved" murder cases.
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In the film, the Duc and Duchesse have four children, while the real Duc de Choiseul-Praslin and Duchesse had ten children together.
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Henriette Deluzy-Deportes is an ancestor of Rachel Field, the author of the book the movie is based on.
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Barbara O'Neil was extremely unhappy with how her character was portrayed on screen; she felt that the Duchesse should be less glamorous and much older looking so that it would make more sense that her character would have more reason to be jealous of the much younger Henriette.
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Upon their first meeting, the Duchesse de Praslin asks Henriette how old she is, revealing the answer to be 25-years-old; the Duchesse considers this "so young". Amusingly enough in real life, Barbara O'Neil was twenty-nine years old at the time of filming, while Bette Davis was two years older.
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Charles Boyer enlisted in the army at the beginning of World War II to support France; due to his advantaged age (40) he was assigned clerical duties and general tasks. After his early dismissal he returned to America promptly to star in this film.
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The budget for this film was ridiculously high for a Warner Brothers production; Warner Brothers was famed for releasing films with low production costs. Jack Warner wanted a film that would be similar to "Gone with the Wind" and spared no expense in trying to achieve his goal.
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The original cut of the film was reportedly 190 minutes long (just over three hours), the final cut was shaved down to 141 minutes. There is no surviving footage from the content that was eventually edited out.
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"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on December 15, 1941 with Charles Boyer and Bette Davis reprising their film roles.
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Francis, the Duchesse de Praslin, refers to her husband as Theo, the shortened version of Theobald, which was just one of three of his middle-names. His first name was Charles.
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A snow globe features in the movie. Snowglobes are thought to have originated in France in the early 1800s and contained many tiny chips of fine porcelain.
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Was June Lockhart's second film, and first credited role. Out of the four children starring in the movie, she was the only one to continue acting in to adulthood.
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Reportedly it took forty minutes to dress Bette Davis each day in her historically accurate costumes with several layers of under garments and corsets to help her maintain the correct posture and movement
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In 1941 Barbara O'Neil was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in this movie. She lost to Jane Darwell and her performance in The Grapes of Wrath.
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There are over 150 different paintings featuring in the movie. Set building and set decoration took nearly 70% of the film budget
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While auditioning actresses for the movie, Boyer graciously offered to stand on a box to tower over actresses who were uncomfortable by being taller than he was.
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Boyer wore a girdle to streamline his waist and straighten his posture. In 1848 it was still common practice for males of Nobility (especially in France) to wear corsets and stays beneath their garments.
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Although all of the characters (other than Henry Martyn Field) are meant to be French, only the Duc has an French accent. Bette Davis speaks with an English lilt as her character Henriette had come from England after being a governess to a British family.
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Henriette says to Louise 'What lovely hair for curling'. In most of Louise's scenes following Henriette's introduction, her hair is in rag-rolled curls.
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Two of Bette Davis' and Charles Boyer's scenes are filmed with fires burning notably in the background with a gap between them so the flames are evident; this was deliberate to symbolize the passion 'burning' between them.
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Henriette, the Duc, and the children pass a steam-powered, platform carousel. While Carousels had been popular in France since the 17th century, mechanized carousels like that shown in the film were invented in the late 1840s, when the film is set.
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The bed in the Duchesse's bedroom is the same bed used in Gone with the Wind in Scarlett's bedroom, after Scarlett has married Rhett. Ironically, Barbara O'Neil played Scarlett's mother in that movie.
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Spoilers
Charles Boyer plays this role in which he commits suicide. In real life he did the same by taking barbiturates 2 days after his beloved wife, the actress Pat Paterson, died of cancer. Boyer died in Arizona on Aug. 26, 1978; she died Aug 24th of the same year.
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The Scandal revolving around the case of Choiseul-Praslin's murder of his wife was one of the contributing factors to the 1848 Revolution.
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Although never hinted at or mentioned in the movie, the real life Henriette Deluzy-Deportes, eventually married Henry Martyn Field (as portrayed by Jeffrey Lynn), Author Rachel Field's great uncle.
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Although classed as a Love Story, the two leading characters (Henriette and the Duc) never kiss, nor does the Duc kiss his wife at any point.
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Charles Boyer was incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of being abusive towards a woman which is why the director opted to use facial expressions as an indication of what was to come; reportedly Boyer's intense glares in the 'anger' scenes frightened Barbara O'Neil.
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Henriette (Bette Davis) is seen sitting at the Duc de Praslin's unmarked grave; a popular conspiracy is that the real Duc de Choiseul-Praslin staged his death to escape to Nicaragua where he lived until his death at 78.
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