The daughter (Joan Fontaine) of a musical mentor (Montagu Love) is hopelessly in love with her cousin's husband (Charles Boyer), a handsome composer.The daughter (Joan Fontaine) of a musical mentor (Montagu Love) is hopelessly in love with her cousin's husband (Charles Boyer), a handsome composer.The daughter (Joan Fontaine) of a musical mentor (Montagu Love) is hopelessly in love with her cousin's husband (Charles Boyer), a handsome composer.
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 1 win & 1 nomination total
- Lady Longborough
- (as Dame May Whitty)
- Roberto
- (as Edward Ciannelli)
- Dr. Renee
- (as Andre Charlot)
- Kiril Trigorin
- (as Richard Ryan)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaJoan Fontaine got the lead role of Tessa by a lucky chance. One day, she was having lunch at Romanoff's in Hollywood, with her husband, actor Brian Aherne. The two had just flown in by airplane from their grape ranch in Indio, California, and Fontaine was in a leather flight suit with her hair done in pigtails. Director Edmund Goulding walked into the restaurant, and stopped by their table to say hello to his good friend Aherne. Goulding complained that he was having trouble casting a lead actress for his next movie, "The Constant Nymph." Although he had considered Joan Leslie, she was wrong for the part. And, Goulding explained, "Jack Warner wants a star in the lead, but she has to be consumptive, flat-chested, anemic, and fourteen!" "How about me?" said Fontaine. "Who are you?" asked Goulding, not recognizing the freckled girl in pigtails sitting next to him. "Joan Fontaine," said the actress. Goulding looked startled. "You're perfect!" Fontaine was signed for the part the next day, and later called it "the happiest motion-picture assignment of my career."
- Quotes
Florence Creighton: You flung yourself at my husband in this house and you succeeded!
Tessa Sanger: I can't help it if I love Lewis! I did long before you came to Switzerland and it's not a happy thing. It's brought nothing but sadness into my life, and yet it's so overwhelming I wouldn't want it to be different.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Between Two Worlds: Erich Wolfgang Korngold (2005)
- SoundtracksTomorrow
(uncredited)
Words by Margaret Kennedy
by Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Sung by Joan Fontaine (dubbed by Sally Sweetland) with chamber group
In 1943 as Robert Osborne said rather delicately himself, Flynn was having some 'legal problems'. He sure was, he was facing a charge of statutory rape and was fighting for his career. No wonder he was scratched and Charles Boyer substituted as the pianist/composer. Even without the rape charge I don't Flynn would have been suitable casting in that role in any event.
But it was Joan Fontaine who got the Oscar recognition with a nomination for Best Actress playing a teenager of barely legal age who has a congenital heart problem and who charms Boyer. In the original novel and the play made from it, Boyer's character actually runs off with the Fontaine character.
Some of the same territory was tread on by Billy Wilder in The Major And The Minor, but Ginger Rogers was only pretending to be an adolescent.
Boyer meets Fontaine and her siblings Brenda Marshall, Jean Muir, and Joyce Reynolds at the home of their father Montagu Love. When he dies the girls go to their uncle Charles Coburn to live, except Marshall who marries Peter Lorre. That in itself is something, how often does Peter Lorre get the girl? Boyer marries Coburn's daughter Alexis Smith, but Smith senses something wrong and develops a jealousy of Fontaine. Turns out that while Boyer doesn't do anything, she's right to be suspicious.
The novel by Margaret Kennedy was turned into a play by Basil Dean and debuted in London with no less than Noel Coward and Edna Best in the leads. It ran 148 performances on Broadway in the 1926-27 season and two film versions across the pond were made, a silent with Ivor Novello and another sound version that starred Brian Aherne who would later marry Joan Fontaine. I'd be curious to see how the whole May/September romance was handled there.
Fontaine lost the Oscar that year to newcomer Jennifer Jones who was also playing a juvenile of a different kind in The Song Of Bernadette.
The Constant Nymph is a strange yet curiously winning film. One wonders how the story would be done today in a film.
- bkoganbing
- Jan 31, 2012
- How long is The Constant Nymph?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 52 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
Contribute to this page
![Joan Fontaine, Charles Boyer, and Alexis Smith in The Constant Nymph (1943)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMGQ5NWEzNDYtMGZmNi00ZGU1LTk0M2ItNzQ4OGY2NmE4ZjkzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMDI2NDg0NQ@@._V1_QL75_UX90_CR0,2,90,133_.jpg)