 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I recall an interview where Edith Head said (about this film) that it was harder to make a beautiful woman look plain than to to the opposite.
Like most people, Head missed the point, though I think William Wyler's film makes it clear enough: It's not that Catherine Sloper is physically plain (this is Olivia De Havilland we're talking about, after all; all they really could do is make her complexion ruddy -- which her father takes pains to compare unfavorably with her late mother's far complexion -- and give her an unflattering, though very authentic, 1840s hairstyle) but that, all through her life, her father has relentlessly made her view herself as unattractive and graceless by extolling the perfection that was, in his mind, her mother, who died of complications from chidbirth, for which he has never forgiven Catherine.
The Heiress must have ranked very highly on her career highlights, as well it should. The end of more than an era. RIP.
DeHavilland generated the project herself, securing an option on Ruth and Augistus Goetz's stage play and bringing the property to Wyler. It was, then, a triump for her on more levels than the performance she gave, and Oscar she won.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
