The Regaling Richard Burton Blogathon – My Cousin Rachel (1952)

This is my 2nd of 3 reviews for the The Regaling About Richard Burton Blogathon being hosted by Gill of WeegieMidget.

Tnx for letting me partake Gill!

 

“Because I love her and nothing else! It isn’t a little loving. It isn’t a fancy. It isn’t something you’d turn on and off. It’s everything I think and feel and want and know. And there’s no room in me for anything else. And never will be again.” – Philip

Number of Times Seen – 1 (3 Dec 2018)

Brief Synopsis – A young man travels to Florence to help his cousin after receiving a disturbing letter from him about his health.

My Take on it – This is another choice for this blogathon that I knew absolutely nothing about when choosing the watch and review it.

The story is quite intriguing and that has a lot to do with the very convincing performances by the two leads Richard Burton and Olivia deHavilland.

The best part of this film is the fact that you want to believe everything being told and they it quickly changes directions which places doubt upon what is truly happening.

The story flows really well and keeps things interesting throughout.

They do a great job leaving so much of the storyline ambiguous throughout which leaves the viewer in a place where they must constantly try to guess what is truly happening just as the main character himself must do at the same time.

Burton was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this role.

Bottom Line – Intriguing story that works largely due to the great performances by Burton and deHavilland. They manage to keep things flowing throughout and the way that the story unfolds keeps changing directions which helps make things more mysterious and gripping at the same time. Much of what happens is left ambiguous which allows for the viewer to constantly try to guess what is the truth just as the main character himself must do. Burton was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this role. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Richard Burton’s posthumously-published diaries reveal that he accepted the role of Philip in this film because it was being planned as a comeback vehicle for Greta Garbo under the direction of his friend George Cukor, whom he regarded as one of the great Hollywood directors. He claims that Garbo personally told him she would only do the film with him as her leading man. When negotiations with both Garbo and Cukor fell through (Garbo never made another film, and Cukor and Burton never worked together), Burton remained attached to the project, which was refashioned as a vehicle for Olivia De Havilland following her Oscar-winning success in “The Heiress”. Burton claims that De Havilland was impossibly arrogant after her Oscar triumph, insisted on having sole above-the-title star billing, and also would not allow anyone to call her by her first name, only as “Miss De Havilland”. He found this state of affairs preposterous and was rude about her for the rest of his life whenever the film (which he despised) came up in interviews. (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy (7/10)

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