The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955)

It's Difficult NOT To Enjoy This Movie

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Here is the story of a girl who had the best of both worlds before it all came tumbling down in a murder.There was a very good performance by Joan Collins as Evelyn Nesbit. Well supported-by Farley Granger, the millionaire whose insanity got the best of him and a wonderful performance by Ray Milland as Sandford White, her older lover, a brilliant architect whose lust for Nesbit was his ultimate downfall.Glenda Farrell was superb as Nesbit's mother, especially when she realized that she could no longer control her daughter's lust.A story of how fate brought the three together and how fate kept the rivalry between both men until the Granger character ended it all by killing White.The last scene of the film showed who Nesbit really loved by her being on a red velvet swing in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

This is a good example of an over-produced film, much too lengthy (109-min.) and gaudy for the slender material that doesn't engage until the last 10-minutes. I expect TCF saw anti-TV potential in a wide-screen Technicolor treatment of true-life scandal among the rich and famous. The trouble is that neither the acting nor the script is able to carry the needed momentum, despite the wide-screen spectacle. After all, stretching a single theme of forbidden love to a two-hour time slot is challenging even for the best screenplay, which this definitely is not.Then too, the real life Nesbitt was apparently involved in the production, along with wealthy family heirs to White and Thaw in the background, resulting, I expect, in an overly cautious portrayal of events. That's reflected, I think, in Collins' curiously dull portrayal. Logically, I would have expected some change in Nesbitt's demure demeanor over the years, especially after entering the high life. Instead, there's hardly a hint of the high life's affecting her throughout the movie's course. (And we know what an edge actress Collins can bring when called upon.) In fact, the nature of her relationship with White is so sanitized, it's hard to know what to make of it.Ace director Fleischer also appears unengaged with the material, filming it in straightforward, unimaginative style, unlike many of his other projects, e.g. The Narrow Margin (1952). Speaking of B-movie gems like "Margin", I wish the expert budget crews at Columbia or RKO had gotten hold of this material first. After all, hot-blooded romance and cold-blooded murder are prime stuff for B-movie treatment, where reputations and big audience appeal are not so much at stake and risks can be taken. Too bad that what we're left with instead is an under-nourished and over-stretched slice of 50's eye candy.

As if by coincidence, we had watched "La fille coupee en deux", directed by Claude Chabrol, last night, and lo and behold, this earlier Hollywood version of the same story was shown the following night on cable. This is the third version of the same story, the other came out in Milos Forman's "Ragtime", that we have seen about the life of Evelyn Nesbit, a beautiful woman, who at the turn of the twentieth century found herself at the center of a love triangle. That the real Ms. Nesbit was an adviser of this 1955 Hollywood version, lends one to believe the screenplay was tilted to show her in a better light, as is the case with this film.Stanford White, a famous New York architect, builder, among other things of the Washington Square Arch, was a man who loved beauty wherever he saw it. At the time when one first meets him, he was forty eight years old. Married to Elizabeth, who was his same age, he is left alone as Mrs. White departs for Baden-Baden because of her arthritis. This man falls for the gorgeous Evelyn Nesbit, a poor young woman, whose main talent was her beauty.Evelyn also breaks young Harry Kendall Thaw's heart. This young man about town, a rich heir to a large fortune, wanted Evelyn, at all costs. His passion was his downfall. His infatuation with the ravishing beauty proved to be fatal. Harry's mother had a lot at stake, as she tried everything to get his son away from the woman she perceived to be a threat to her son's well being.Joan Collins, who was at the height of her beauty, plays Evelyn. It was one of her earlier screen appearances, although not her first. Her take of Evelyn, perhaps influenced by the real Ms. Nesbit, shows us a naive young woman who falls prey to forces that were bigger than her. There was also a sexual undercurrent in the story, something that in those days was not dealt with reality. Ray Milland and Farley Granger play Stanford White and Harry Thaw, respectively. A good supporting cast was assembled for the picture. Luther Adler, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Glenda Farrell, Gail Robbins, and Phillip Reed, among others, are seen in the background.The film was directed by Richard Fleischer and based on the screenplay by Charles Brackett, long associated with Billy Wilder, and Walter Reisch. Milton Krasner's cinematography contributed to make this a better film.

God, I've read the reviews.I know I'll be lambasted for accusing amateur critics for being totally rubbish. BUT can any one get to the realization that this movie (made in 1955) was based on real people with real lives over 100 years ago (as I write - 1 May 2008!!).That is amazing in it itself - Let's let a few things go. The movie was made 49 years after the murder. I'm writing about it after 102 years - and it's still a great, and terribly sad story. Who could tell it now!? We think we're the first generation to be totally liberated with sex scenes. We're so smart that we watch Sex in the City (and the amazing swing scene). However, this movie was made in 1955 and is based upon a very real and very sad story. Evelyn Nesbit was one of the first and greatest Hollywood actresses - up until 1930 she and others like her were sometimes freely allowed a sexuality that is still, to this day, considered sometimes pornographic.However, regarding this movie and (real) story in particular, what is most amazing is how a small town beauty in the first decade of the 1900's (correct - 100 years ago) allowed herself to be caught between two powerful men (infact there was a third - actually in the middle - John Barrymore) and that her life eventually became a Hollywood thriller. Only in the United States of America.Good God! Elizabeth Nesbit was 16 when she met the 47 year old Mr. Standford White - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Nesbit. She was a "silent actress" - never made a speaking role in her life. However perhaps she was the first sell out. She was special adviser to this film... why wouldn't she be - she was central to it. She IS it!!! But even by 1930 (yet alone 1955) Evelyn Nesbit was a total has been. According to Wikipedia, largely because of her third husband - the Mr.Thaw that killed Mr. White - her opportunities to act as the "Vamp" she once had, ended. The reason Thaw fell in love with her was the very reason she couldn't act on the screen that made her a 20th Century legend. Looking back however, even if the transition from the movies to the talkies allowed it (and it rarely did), Evelyn was always going to be something from a by-gone age - "The Vamp" - a segment from the curiosity shop - the "silents" - and, allegedly, a witness to a murder of a former lover - in a time when men still wore spats, and top hats and long tails... It all seems so romantic now - except that this was real, 102 years ago a man was shot in the face for love or lust or jealousy, somebody actually was really murdered. I doubt it was romantic - in any way, shape or form.What do you think - would a 2008 version do these people and especially Evelyn Nesbit more justice, or should we just let people rest? After all in 1955 the story was only 49 years old...