All This, and Heaven Too (1940)

Overrated

An unexpected masterpiece

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I quote this line from Pierre's worthy advice for Henriette to leave the house before it's too late.Unfortunately she declined the advice and insisted on staying bringing catastrophic incidents on the whole family including the man she loved.I think that Henriette didn't really love Le Duc but she only admired his character as being decent gentle and a kind father.She tells Pierre that Le Duc is a fine gentleman. If it were a real sincere love Henriette would have left the house as soon as possible saving the children and the man she loved the tragic incidents that happened later Charles Boyer's natural gift of subtle romantic performance remains insuperable.He stole the scenes whenever he appeared on the screen and the scene of his dying was really a masterpiece.I wonder why he is underappreciated and one can rarely find critics discussing or analysing his work.In fact the whole atmosphere of the movie is enchanting and captivating.I must admit that I am caught in the spell of the movie especially Boyer's magic performance and I don't even wish to escape.

I thought I had seen every Bette Davis movie, but somehow ALL THIS AND HEAVEN TOO evaded me…until now. The review posted by nycritic is very good and find myself agreeing almost entirely. However, I would like to add some thoughts and take issue with a couple of things in that review. As I viewed it this is Bette Davis' movie from the first moment to the last. Barbara O' Neill may well have given the performance of her life, but I can't imagine anyone but her mother suggesting that she" walks off with the movie." It is simply impossible to take your eyes off Bette Davis whenever she is on screen, which is pretty much every scene. And not because she is Bette Davis. In this particular movie Bette Davis may play against character, but she inhabits the role of Mademoiselle Deluzy-Desportes completely, so the viewer can't help but absorb her every happiness and pain. I agree it would be easy to visualize Joan Fontaine in this role, but then we would have never had the opportunity to see this remarkable Bette Davis performance. ALL THIS AND HEAVEN TOO has elements of two of my favorite movies (each very different from the other, save the presence of Laurence Olivier). I felt the same sense of lurking tragedy for Mademoiselle Deluzy-Desportes as I did for young Heathcliff in WUTHERING HEIGHTS. And while Henriette and the Duc de Praslin never actually indulge their desires as Emma and Nelson do in THAT HAMILTON WOMAN, the inevitable fall from grace is very reminiscent of Lady Hamilton's fate.

The film "All this and Heaven Too", from 1940, and directed by Anatole Litvak is a true love story. Madamusel Deluzy is a young woman that is alone in the world trying to find her way. She lands a job as a governess for the prominent Duc and Duchesses and their four beautiful children. Deluzy is a very kind hearted woman that is great with the children and gets along very well except for the one main person that she needs too, the Duchesses. The Duchesses feels that in the time that Deluzy has been employed in her home, she has been able to steal all the love and affection from her children and husband that she deserves. The Duchesses refuses to see that all this affection she is claiming to have stolen from her was gone way before the governess was there. The Duchesses is a very over dramatic woman that thinks everything going wrong in her life is someone else's fault, but none of it her own. While she sits locked in her room away from the rest of the house, it is true that the Duc and Governess are becoming closer as friends by way of the children. The Duc is a good father that wants to be there during some of their studies, causing him to in turn spend time with her. Everyone that isn't in the situation and is simply looking in thinks that there is more to them then just friendship. By the end, the governess is actually thrown out of the home when the Duchesses bluntly accused Deluzy of stealing away the Duc her. She leaves with no fight, and continues on with her life, but never forgets about what was there. The truth is she did fall in love with the Duc, and the Duc had fallen in love with her. The both of them had too much respect for the children to ever do something about it and make them suffer from the decisions they had made. I really enjoyed this movie. It was very well written, but the acting of Betty Davis really pulled everything together and made the audience feel the love & pain that she was going through.

The one thing that struck me most about All This, and Heaven Too (1940) was the artistic camera movements. From the very beginning of the film there were very long shots, with fluid moving cameras. Of the films I've seen from this era, this is quite rare. The director, Anatole Litvak took many risks in the camera sequences and shots. A somewhat bland and predictable script is come to life with superb acting and artistic direction. This film felt much like a modern classic, the young actresses carry the movie, something I have yet to see in a pre-1950 film. Another notable part of the film is the score by Max Steiner, the opening scene of movie is presented beautifully by a great score, these powerful sounds continue throughout the film. Overall All This, and Heaven More is a solid film, unfortunately various things had to make up for the poor script, otherwise this is a great piece of work.