Devotion (1946 film)

Devotion
1946 Theatrical poster
Directed by	Curtis Bernhardt
Produced by	Robert Buckner
Written by	Theodore Reeves (story) Keith Winter Edward Chodorov (uncredited)
Starring	Ida Lupino Paul Henreid Olivia de Havilland Sydney Greenstreet Nancy Coleman Arthur Kennedy
Music by	Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	April 20, 1946
Running time	107 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Devotion is a 1946 highly-fictionalized biographical film account of the lives of the Brontë sisters. This was Montagu Love's last role. He died almost three years before the film's delayed release.

Devotion was filmed between November 11, 1942 and mid-February 1943, but was delayed to be screened until April 5, 1946 at the Strand Theater in Manhattan, due to a law suit by Olivia de Havilland against Warner Brothers. De Havilland successfully sued her studio to terminate her contract without providing the studio an extra six months to make up for her time on suspension. It proved a landmark case for the industry.^[1]

In the review of ‘’Devotion’’ in the ‘’New York Times’’, Brosley Crowther wrote: “The Warners have simplified matters to an almost irreducible extreme and have found an explanation for the Brontës in Louisa May Alcott terms. They have visioned sombrous Emily, the author of Wuthering Heights, and Charlotte, the writer of Jane Eyre, as a couple of 'little women" with a gift." Despite an excellent score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and production values and an ending that hearkened back to the earlier Wuthering Heights by Warner Brothers’ rival studio, the press generally put ‘’Devotion’’ down as “…a mawkish costume romance, even with identities removed. Presented as the story of the Brontës—and with the secondary characters poorly played — it is a ridiculous tax upon reason and an insult to plain intelligence.”^[2]

On February 17, 1947, "Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie with Ida Lupino reprising her film role.

Cast

• Ida Lupino as Emily Brontë
• Paul Henreid as Reverend Arthur Nicholls
• Olivia de Havilland as Charlotte Brontë
• Sydney Greenstreet as William Makepeace Thackeray
• Nancy Coleman as Anne Brontë
• Arthur Kennedy as Branwell Brontë
• Dame May Whitty as Lady Thornton
• Victor Francen as Monsieur Heger
• Montagu Love as Reverend Bronte
• Ethel Griffies as Aunt Branwell
• Edmund Breon as Sir John Thornton
• Odette Myrtil as Madame Heger
• Doris Lloyd as Mrs. Ingraham
• Marie De Becker as Tabby
• Ely Malyon as Lady Thornton's friend at the ball

References

1. ^ De Havilland lawsuit resonates through Hollywood, Matthew Belloni, Reuters News Agency, 23 August 23, 2007.
2. '^ Devotion,' a Fictionized Tale of Bronte Sisters, at Strand, Brosley Crowther, The New York Times 6 April 1946.

External links

• Devotion at the TCM Movie Database
• Devotion at the Internet Movie Database
• Devotion at AllRovi