The Barretts of Wimpole Street

"The Baretts of Wimpole Street" released in 1934, has the stamp of MGM's great production values. Norma Schearer wonderfully plays Elizabeth Barrett, the invalid poet. She is overly protected by her father, brilliantly played by Charles Laughton. We later learn Laughton is really a tyrant of a man who is incapable of really loving anyone or being loved. Elizabeth meets the fellow poet Robert Browning (Frederic March), and they fall in love. Maureen O'Sullivan give one of her finest performances as Elizabeth's sister, who also falls in love with a Captain. Her father finds out and forbids her to see him again, in a cruel and heartbreaking scene where he makes her swear on a bible. The interplay between Laughton and O'Sullivan and Schearer is fascinating, as the family dynamics are brought to the foreground. "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" was originally a stage play, but translates just fine to the screen. The supporting case is top notch, but this is Norma Schearer's show. It is difficult to take your eyes off her. Laughton is great, as is O'Sullivan. Frederic March at times seems a bit off as Robert Browning, although he is very handsome and the chemistry between he and Schearer is credible. It is a shame that Norma Schearer left the movies by the 1940's. But we are fortunate that this gifted actress left such an amazing legacy of films - "The Barrets of Wimpole Street" is certainly one of them.

The love story between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett is legendary, and her 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' contains some of the beautiful love poetry ever written. They were both already established poets when they began corresponding, but she was an invalid, and had doubts and insecurities that he helped overcome with steady, persistent, genuine love. What I had forgotten about their story was how poorly her father behaved towards her and the rest of his children, and this movie really shows us that, in what appears to be a pretty accurate way.

Charles Laughton is brilliant as the overbearing, controlling, overprotective, borderline incestuous Mr. Barrett, father of 12, whose wife had passed away, and whose own frustrations in love had led him to forbid his children to marry. He's hard to watch at times, but certainly gives the best performance, and the movie is probably more about his inability to let his children go – indeed, he disinherited each one who married – than it is about the extraordinary love between Robert and Elizabeth, though Frederic March and Norma Shearer do have some tender scenes. I enjoyed watching it, but I suppose that's the reason I didn't give a higher rating. How much better would it have been had they incorporated even more of their relationship, and some of their letters and poetry. The movie would be remade 23 years later by the same director, Sidney Franklin, and would be a great choice to be remade (with script changes) again today.

Charles Laughton was unmatched in larger-than-life monster roles, physical or emotional grotesques. Surrounded by stars, he outshone and certainly upstaged them all. And what a range too? The soft-hearted sentimental Hunchback of Notre Dame, the ultimate aloof aristocratic villain Squire Trelawney in Daphne DuMauriers tale of Cornish smugglers, the overbearing, over-drinking Lancashire patriarch in the comic Hobsons Choice.Nobody matched Laughton, nobody played them half as well.

Here,what would otherwise have been a nice family of happy siblings is instead daily terrorised by a bullying obsessive jealous widower.What might have been a pleasant life is made one of stress as their reasonable expectations of a happy life are thwarted by the strange exactions of one man: their father.Lives that could have been pleasant and in the main unexceptional are dominated by him. But it is the eldest daughter who receives most of her father's attention who rather than lose her, instead insists that she is an invalid and must remain bed-ridden.

Dramatically, the entire world of this family of 10 is dominated - and animated - by the single figure of this domineering monster played by Laughton. It is, after this, a fairly simple tale of the unalloyed good and brave daughter (played by Hollyood darling Norma Shearer) who rebels and against this tyrant and is able to go on to have a distinguished life with nice young suitor, poet Robert Browning (Frederic March in this for him an unchallenging role. March had elsewhere played one of cinema's most memorable monsters: Mr Hyde).

Norma Shearer rebels not only on her own behalf but also for her siblings too so that they can all live normal fulfilled lives. Not just for her own domestic happiness but also for her artistic freedom, against the the tyranny of this lone monster who would crush them all.

It was Laughton who admitted that the look that he gave his daughter (Shearer) should have earned the film an X certificate - it conveyed the very mixed and complicated emotions of this very odd Victorian disciplinarian pater familias.

Love brings both ecstasy and turmoil to the troubled home of THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET.

With its usual opulent style, MGM relates the story of the romance between two of England's most celebrated poets of the 19th Century, Elizabeth Barrett & Robert Browning. Not at all stuffy, the film lets the especially strong performances and the (mostly) true facts of the case propel the drama. It's inspiring to see what adversities real people have had to overcome to still achieve happiness and contribute to society.

Three vivid performances dominate the film. As Elizabeth, Norma Shearer is radiant, conveying the emotions of a woman grasping at the chance for sudden, unbelievable love, while still having to fight off paternal attentions which have become sickly & diseased. Fredric March as Browning fairly explodes on the screen, full of energy and vitality, anxious to express his honest adoration for Shearer, come what may. His great enthusiasm is played with effective contrast as compared to Shearer's enforced languor.

But stealing his every scene is Charles Laughton, fascinatingly perverse as Mr. Barrett, whose warped personality & twisted sensual ego forces him to demand complete, unswerving obedience from his terrified offspring. His eyes hint at passions best left undisturbed and even in his final screen moments he's utterly unrepentant, still plotting pain to punish others.

An excellent supporting cast adds immensely to the film: lovely Maureen O'Sullivan as Elizabeth's sister Henrietta, desperate for freedom from her awful home; affable Ralph Forbes, one of the most under-appreciated actors of the era, as her earnest suitor; birdlike Una O'Connor as Shearer's loyal maid; genial Ferdinand Munier & blunt Leo G. Carroll as Shearer's supportive doctors; flighty Marion Clayton as Laughton's silly niece; and Ian Wolfe as her foppish suitor.

The other Barrett siblings are portrayed by Katharine Alexander (Arabel), Vernon Downing (Octavius), Neville Clark (Charles), Matthew Smith (George), Robert Carleton (Alfred), Allan Conrad (Henry) & Peter Hobbes (Septimus).

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Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861), the eldest of ten children, lived a very happy childhood by all accounts, free to write and pursue her intellectual interests. But after the death of her mother, Mary, and a serious spinal injury resulting from a fall, her life began to darken. The death by drowning of her brother, Edward, brought on an emotional reaction so severe that she became a virtual recluse. Financial problems eventually brought her family to reside at 50 Wimpole Street, London, in 1838. She continued to write and publish poetry, some of which was very highly acclaimed and brought her to the attention of the poet Robert Browning (1812-1889), six years her junior. Highly emotional, his first telegram to her in January of 1845 went straight to the point: "I love your verses with all of my heart, dear Miss Barrett. I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart--and I love you too." He visited her and they fell passionately in love, finally marrying on September 12, 1846. Elizabeth continued living at her father's home for another week before escaping to Florence, Italy, with Browning. (Her father, who really was a wicked old sinner, never forgave her. He finally died in 1856.) Elizabeth's health improved in Italy, and she gave birth to her only child, Robert Wiedmann Browning, in 1849. Her love poems to her husband were published in 1850. Entitled Sonnets from the Portuguese, they became her most famous work. Elizabeth's last years were spent busily involved in the anti-slavery movement, spiritualism & Italian politics. Her health relapsed and she died in her husband's arms in 1861.

The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934). Fine performances in this film adaptation of the play. Poet Elizabeth Browning (Norma Shearer), sick and shut in, corresponds with, and later meets the younger poet Robert Browning (Fredric March), who helps give her strength to live life, and gives physical form to a love between them already established through reading each other's poems. Wonderful performance by Charles Laughton as Elizabeth's strict, menacing, religious father, who delivers as much incestulous-glint into his eyes and creepy closeness as 1930's sensibilities would allow. Also, a very nice job by a young Maureen O'Sullivan, although her very voice draws me out of the film and leaves me expecting Tarzan to burst in at any moment. Finally, Uma O'Connor is my most favorite supporting character actress of all time.