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The Constant Nymph

  • 1943
  • Passed
  • 1h 52m
IMDb RATING
6.7/10
1.5K
YOUR RATING
Joan Fontaine, Charles Boyer, and Alexis Smith in The Constant Nymph (1943)
The daughter of a musical mentor is hopelessly in love with her cousin's husband, a handsome composer.
Play trailer3:32
1 Video
21 Photos
DramaMusicMystery

The daughter of a musical mentor is hopelessly in love with her cousin's husband, a handsome composer.The daughter of a musical mentor is hopelessly in love with her cousin's husband, a handsome composer.The daughter of a musical mentor is hopelessly in love with her cousin's husband, a handsome composer.

  • Director
    • Edmund Goulding
  • Writers
    • Kathryn Scola
    • Margaret Kennedy
    • Basil Dean
  • Stars
    • Charles Boyer
    • Joan Fontaine
    • Brenda Marshall
  • See production, box office & company info
  • IMDb RATING
    6.7/10
    1.5K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Edmund Goulding
    • Writers
      • Kathryn Scola
      • Margaret Kennedy
      • Basil Dean
    • Stars
      • Charles Boyer
      • Joan Fontaine
      • Brenda Marshall
    • 40User reviews
    • 13Critic reviews
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 1 Oscar
      • 1 win & 1 nomination total

    Videos1

    Original Theatrical Trailer
    Trailer 3:32
    Watch Original Theatrical Trailer

    Photos21

    Charles Boyer and Brenda Marshall in The Constant Nymph (1943)
    Joan Fontaine, Peter Lorre, Charles Boyer, and Alexis Smith in The Constant Nymph (1943)
    Joan Fontaine and Peter Lorre in The Constant Nymph (1943)
    Joan Fontaine, Charles Boyer, and Alexis Smith in The Constant Nymph (1943)
    Joan Fontaine and Joyce Reynolds in The Constant Nymph (1943)
    Peter Lorre and Brenda Marshall in The Constant Nymph (1943)
    Alexis Smith in The Constant Nymph (1943)
    Joan Fontaine, Charles Boyer, and Joyce Reynolds in The Constant Nymph (1943)
    Joan Fontaine and Charles Boyer in The Constant Nymph (1943)
    Joan Fontaine, Charles Boyer, and Alexis Smith in The Constant Nymph (1943)
    Joan Fontaine and Alexis Smith in The Constant Nymph (1943)
    Joan Fontaine in The Constant Nymph (1943)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Charles Boyer
    Charles Boyer
    • Lewis Dodd
    Joan Fontaine
    Joan Fontaine
    • Tessa Sanger
    Brenda Marshall
    Brenda Marshall
    • Toni Sanger
    Alexis Smith
    Alexis Smith
    • Florence Creighton
    Charles Coburn
    Charles Coburn
    • Charles Creighton
    May Whitty
    May Whitty
    • Lady Longborough
    • (as Dame May Whitty)
    Peter Lorre
    Peter Lorre
    • Fritz Bercovy
    Joyce Reynolds
    Joyce Reynolds
    • Paula Sanger
    Jean Muir
    Jean Muir
    • Kate Sanger
    Montagu Love
    Montagu Love
    • Albert Sanger
    Eduardo Ciannelli
    Eduardo Ciannelli
    • Roberto
    • (as Edward Ciannelli)
    Janine Crispin
    Janine Crispin
    • Marie
    Doris Lloyd
    Doris Lloyd
    • Miss Hamilton
    Joan Blair
    • Lina
    André Charlot
    • Dr. Renee
    • (as Andre Charlot)
    Richard Ryen
    Richard Ryen
    • Kiril Trigorin
    • (as Richard Ryan)
    Crauford Kent
    Crauford Kent
    • Thorpe
    Marcel Dalio
    Marcel Dalio
    • Georges
    • Director
      • Edmund Goulding
    • Writers
      • Kathryn Scola
      • Margaret Kennedy
      • Basil Dean
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Joan 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.

    • Connections
      Featured in Between Two Worlds: Erich Wolfgang Korngold (2005)
    • Soundtracks
      Tomorrow
      (uncredited)

      Words by Margaret Kennedy

      by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

      Sung by Joan Fontaine (dubbed by Sally Sweetland) with chamber group

    User reviews40

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    Interesting but not an absolute classic about artistic bohemians vs. conformity
    TCM recently managed to clear the rights of this film from the literary executors of Basil Dean (who coauthored the play version) and Margaret Kennedy (who authored the novel and play adaptation). The television premiere was on TCM on September 28, 2011. The original 1924 novel has been reprinted in paperback but I have not read it yet.

    It seems that the 1943 Hollywood adaptation cleans most of the sex out of the story which was dealt with in the novel. Also the book focuses on the entire Sanger family while the film (and play) focuses on the central triangle of Tessa, Lewis Dodd and Florence. I think that Boyer and Fontaine are somewhat miscast as Tessa and Dodd though both perform excellently. It seems that in the novel the pair become lovers though Tessa is underage and they actually do escape together to Brussels. Also, the sister Toni Sanger already has had a sexual affair with Birnbaum, played in the movie by Peter Lorre as Fritz Bercovy. In the film both affairs remain chaste - at least until Toni Sanger is safely married to the Birnbaum/Bercovy character.

    In the film, the pedophilia issue is dodged by having Dodd and Tessa realize and acknowledge they are lovers/soul mates without any form of consummation - even kissing. Their love is idealized and unrealizable on this earth. One love scene that was probably played for real in the book or play is done as a "dream vision" by Tessa while she listen's to Dodd's symphony on the radio.

    Fontaine is too old but shows a remarkable lack of vanity - wearing no makeup and using an awkward, hyperactive physicality to suggest an adolescent girl. Boyer comes off as too much the mature European roué - Robert Donat, Errol Flynn and Leslie Howard were all considered for the part. Not enough is made of Lewis' social nonconformity - in the book he is also the son of wealth who repudiates his class and its values. Alexis Smith as Florence, the unhappy excluded wife comes off best in some ways - her character has a genuine conflict going on and is proactive. Smith as another poster mentioned is simultaneously hateful, understandable and pitiful and she fights for a relationship that is essentially doomed. Florence's attraction to bohemian artistic types is in conflict with her basic inability to sympathize with their lifestyles and values. This conflict is truthfully captured by Smith and Goulding.

    The studio sets in the Austrian Tyrol scenes look like a mix of Kentucky farm and English moors and are not convincing. There is a genuine sophistication here but without the characters taking that final fatal step into the forbidden, some of the guts of the story is lost. The previous two adaptation of the book - a 1928 silent with Ivor Novello and Mabel Poulton (preserved by the BFI) and an unavailable or lost 1934 remake with Victoria Hopper and Brian Aherne evidently hewed closer to the novel.
    helpful•27
    4
    • TimesSquareAngel
    • Sep 30, 2011

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • July 10, 1943 (Mexico)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Jungfräuliche Liebe
    • Filming locations
      • Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA(Studio)
    • Production company
      • Warner Bros.
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 52 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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