Joan of Arc (1948)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Victor Fleming

Writers:

Maxwell Anderson (play)
Maxwell Anderson (screenplay)

Release Date:

15 September 1949 (Australia)

Genre:

Biography | Drama

Tagline:

Greatest of all spectacles!

Plot:

In the Fifteenth Century, France is a defeated and ruined nation after the One Hundred Years War against England...

Plot Keywords:

France | Joan Of Arc | Trial | Religion | Heroine

Awards:

Won 2 Oscars. Another 1 win & 5 nominations

Cast

Ingrid Bergman	...	Joan of Arc
Francis L. Sullivan	...	Pierre Cauchon (Count-Bishop of Beauvais)
J. Carrol Naish	...	John, Count of Luxembourg (Joan's captor)
Ward Bond	...	La Hire
Shepperd Strudwick	...	Father Massieu (Joan's bailiff)
Gene Lockhart	...	Georges de la Trémouille
John Emery	...	Jean - Duke d'Alencon
Leif Erickson	...	Dunois, Bastard of Orleans
Cecil Kellaway	...	Jean le Maistre (Inquisitor of Rouen)
José Ferrer	...	The Dauphin, Charles VII, later King of France
Selena Royle	...	Isabelle d'Arc (Joan's mother)
Robert Barrat	...	Jacques d'Arc (Joan's Father)
Jimmy Lydon	...	Pierre d'Arc (Joan's younger brother)
Rand Brooks	...	Jean d'Arc (Joan's older brother)
Roman Bohnen	...	Durand Laxart (Joan's uncle)

Also Known As:

Joan of Lorraine (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

145 min | USA:100 min (cut version) | 145 min (DVD version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

UK:PG (edited version) | UK:U (original rating, cut version) | Finland:K-10

Filming Locations:

Balboa, Newport Beach, California, USA

Company:

Sierra Pictures (II)

Trivia:

At one time, MGM was scheduled to release the film, but they eventually backed out due to disagreements with Sierra Pictures.

Quotes:

Joan of Arc: BISHOP! I die through you!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr. (1996)

Friedhofer's Music

After what seems like gargantuan efforts to obtain the DVD and the necessary equipment I have finally managed to see the uncut version of Joan of Arc.

I am thrilled with this new DVD and will add nothing further to the positive comments that have already been made. However I should like to pay particular tribute to the wonderful music of Hugo Friedhofer. Of course, for years I loved his score for 'The best years of your life' but in terms of writing for an earlier period I never regarded this composer is quite the same league as, say, William Walton, whose Shakespeare/ Olivier scores were so memorable. But I have been forced to revise my opinion.

It was Max Reger who commented to the English composer Vaughan Williams: 'you have a veritable obsession with the flattened seventh' Well so, it seems does Mr Friedhofer! I suppose one either likes or loathes pastiche and modal writing. I adore it, and think that in Joan of Arc we get the best of both worlds. The music has a direct and powerful emotional appeal. It could scarcely fail to have. Yet given the fact that Friedhofer uses C20th conventions, harmonies, instruments and musicians, his 'nods' in the direction of C15th French church music are tastefully enough done for us to feel that such scenes as the coronation are, if not exactly in any sense 'authentic' then still marvellously effective.

I should dearly love to know whether anyone has arranged the score into a suite of pieces and recorded it. That would be a rare treat. Perhaps some other readers can advise?