Becky Sharp 1935 Billie Burke was Glinda the Good Witch of the North in The Wizard of Oz
Movie Stars: Miriam Hopkins,Frances Dee,Billie Burke,Cedric Hardwicke,Frances Dee,Nigel Bruce Romance Drama movie
Becky Sharp released in 1935 and based on the play of the same name by Langdon Mitchell, which in turn is based on the William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel “Vanity Fair”.
It tells the story of a lower-class girl who insinuates herself into an upper class family, only to see her life and the lives of those around her destroyed. The ruthless, self-willed and beautiful Becky is one of the most famous characters in English literature.
After the tremendous success of the short La Cucaracha in 1934, John Hay Whitney and his cousin Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney formed Pioneer Pictures to produce color films, of which this was the first.
Being the first Technicolor film, the color at the time did not look too realistic; one critic commented that the cast looked like “boiled salmon dipped in mayonnaise”.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becky_Sharp
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Omg how did people stand that!
Thanks for sharing this movie. I would like to say that I decided to see Becky Sharp for being the first feature film in Technicolor produced in Hollywood and the world. The good news is that there are several restored copies available on youtube.
Despite being a milestone in film history, Becky Sharp is not considered a masterpiece. In my view the big problem is the script choose to tell the story of a girl of humble origin, ambitious and without character (Becky Sharp). The chosen theme does not excite the public. The flushed and boring dialogues do not hide the theatrical origin of the script, hampered by the rigorous code of censorship newly implanted in Hollywood.
Miriam Hopkins, who shone in three films of sophisticated sensuality, directed by master Ernst Lubtisch, is the main victim of this new pattern of "decency." The costumes she wears are strange, tasteless, unattractive and unappealing. The attempts of her character to deceive men are always suppressed by a script that does not get anywhere. It is no coincidence that the environments are always closed, oppressive, suffocating, covered by heavy curtains, and it is not by chance that the best scene is the wind invading the ballroom, coming from the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.
Miriam Hopkins was nominated for an Oscar, but the only satisfactory result at the box office scratched the image of the actress and her possible pretensions to definitely winning star status. It is said that after this film, Hopkins did not deserve another film just for her. Whether it's true or not, Becky Sharp is the one we want to see shining on the screen.
I wonder how people can stand what is being produced in Hollywood these days.