In this last and only American version of The Constant Nymph the omnipresent Code had to be dealt with rather delicately in order for this film to get to the big screen. It involves nothing less than a middle aged man falling in love with an underage girl. No wonder the original casting of Errol Flynn was scratched by Jack Warner.In 1943 as Robert Osborne said rather delicately himself, Flynn was having some 'legal problems'. He sure was, he was facing a charge of statutory rape and was fighting for his career. No wonder he was scratched and Charles Boyer substituted as the pianist/composer. Even without the rape charge I don't Flynn would have been suitable casting in that role in any event.But it was Joan Fontaine who got the Oscar recognition with a nomination for Best Actress playing a teenager of barely legal age who has a congenital heart problem and who charms Boyer. In the original novel and the play made from it, Boyer's character actually runs off with the Fontaine character.Some of the same territory was tread on by Billy Wilder in The Major And The Minor, but Ginger Rogers was only pretending to be an adolescent.Boyer meets Fontaine and her siblings Brenda Marshall, Jean Muir, and Joyce Reynolds at the home of their father Montagu Love. When he dies the girls go to their uncle Charles Coburn to live, except Marshall who marries Peter Lorre. That in itself is something, how often does Peter Lorre get the girl? Boyer marries Coburn's daughter Alexis Smith, but Smith senses something wrong and develops a jealousy of Fontaine. Turns out that while Boyer doesn't do anything, she's right to be suspicious.The novel by Margaret Kennedy was turned into a play by Basil Dean and debuted in London with no less than Noel Coward and Edna Best in the leads. It ran 148 performances on Broadway in the 1926-27 season and two film versions across the pond were made, a silent with Ivor Novello and another sound version that starred Brian Aherne who would later marry Joan Fontaine. I'd be curious to see how the whole May/September romance was handled there.Fontaine lost the Oscar that year to newcomer Jennifer Jones who was also playing a juvenile of a different kind in The Song Of Bernadette.The Constant Nymph is a strange yet curiously winning film. One wonders how the story would be done today in a film.

This is an amazing film. It has a great soundtrack, fine Direction, and an outstanding cast. In this case Alexis Smith plays the oldest of 3 lead actresses, yet in real life she was younger than either Ms. Marshall or Joan Fontaine. I must admit though that when Smith dresses up for the concluding concert, she looks luscious, even in black & white.Fontaine is outstanding in her performance playing very well with Charles Boyer and for that matter in her scenes with Smith. She is the young one who seems to be trying to romance Boyer the entire film.This is a rare film to feature a few scenes with Boyer together with legend Charles Coburn. Add in some scenes of Fontaine and Peter Lorre and we see some historic stuff here. The acting by all these folks is superb. It is great that the lawyers for TCM manage to get this film out of legal limbo to show it. (Wish they could do the same magic for CBS series The Defenders from the 1960's).This film is an old fashioned romance with Fontaine having a rare heart condition which pulls at the heart strings. After seeing this, it is another winner from the 1940's Warner Brothers studio which produced a lot of great films during the War. I saw no flaws in the restoration by the Library of Congress on this print either. A fine film, indeed.

Film preservation is all about saving what survives for today and future generations. Among the lost are London AFTER MIDNIGHT and CONVENTION CITY. 80% of all silent films are lost and 50% of all films made before WWII are gone. Some films are forgotten like original versions when remakes are made. The 1935 version of MAGNIFICENT OBSESSEION launched the career of Robert Taylor but it is rarely shown after it was remade in 1956. Other films can be repressed by the artist who made them, Stanley Kubrick bought up and tried to destroy all the copies of his first film, FEAR AND DESIRE. THE CONSTANT NYMPH (1943) is mostly forgotten because the author's will stated after the original release film it could only be shown at universities or museums. Nymph, definition. A nymph in Greek mythology is a minor nature goddess typically associated with a remote location. Nymphs personify the creative and fostering activities of nature and identify with the life- giving outflow of springs. Nymphs tended to frequent areas distant from humans, but could be encountered by lone travelers outside the village, where their music might be heard, and the traveler could spy on their dancing or bathing. For me, the title THE CONSTANT NYMPH might mean, always innocent or always nurturing. Source & other versions. The book by Margaret Kennedy, THE CONSTANT NYMPH was a runaway bestseller when published in Britain in 1924. One review from The Atlantic magazine said, "It's a novel about ideas... as well as the sort of delicious and merciless emotions that can make people exuberant or desperate." It was also quiet controversial. In 1926, Margaret Kennedy along with Basil Dean adapted THE CONSTANT NYMPH for a three act play for the London stage starring Noel Coward and Edna Best. Playwright Basil Dean jump started his career by turning this novel into a very successful play and backing the first two movie versions first in 1928 and again in 1933. Basil Dean used his profits to form Associated Talking Pictures an important film factory that later became Ealing Studios. Cast, supporting. Among the supporting cast is Peter Lorre who wanted to prove he had more range than playing Mr. Moto or criminal types. Charles Coburn, the white haired heavy set comedy relief who was an overnight discovery at age 61 is best known for THE MORE THE MERRIER and GENTLEMENT PREFER BLONDES, but in tonight's film he has trouble pronouncing the name Roberto and instead says Robert 'Oh. And grand dame, Dame May Witty plays the old socialite that is charmed out of her silver slippers by Charles Boyer. Cast leads. Famed composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, his first movie score was for A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, then CAPTAIN BLOOD and his most famous is THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. But classical music fans point to this films concluding piece the tone poem, TOMORROW as some of his most beautiful he ever wrote. You know what the biggest complaint about this composer was – he didn't write enough music! The third lead is played by Alexis Smith whose early Hollywood nickname was The Dynamite Girl. Alexis is better remembered for costarring with handsome leading men in costume films, here she gets to really act – and what a delicate tight rope act it is! Charles Boyer became a star in France as the lead in LILIOM which was remade in this country as the musical CAROUSEL. His better American films include GASLIGHT, but he is mostly known for his romantic films like: ALGIERS, LOVE AFFAIR and ALL THIS AND HEAVEN TOO. He often played lovers or musicians. Director Edmund Goulding specialized in luminescent, star-studded dramas for MGM like the Oscar winning GRAND HOTEL. Well Goulding got permission and the assignment to make this film but Warner bros. studio wanted him to cast Errol Flynn and Joan Leslie in the leads. But he knew he wanted Charles Boyer to play the musician, but who to play the girl, Tessa? Well as these things happen only in Hollywood, one night at Romanoff's Restaurant he spotted his old friend actor Brian Aherne who had starred in the 1933 version of THE CONSTANT NYMPH in the role as the composer. It seems Brian and his then wife who was also a licensed pilot had just flown in from their ranch. Well Goulding asked Aherne who he should cast as Tessa the young girl, she had to be a name and skinny, frail and flat chested? And Joan said, "Why not me?" To which Golding responded, "Who are You?" To which she said, "Joan Fontaine." He was stunned, thought for a minute (REBECCA, SUSPICION) then said, "Right!" and jumped up to call the studio shouting he had found his Tessa! And she wrote in her autobiography she loved the way he ran the set and carefully directed her! Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland, hard to believe she's Japanese, born Oct. 22, 1917 in Tokyo, Japan. She changed her name to that of her actress mother's stage name of Fontaine. She was cast opposite Fred Astaire in A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS and had small parts in GUNGA DIN & THE WOMEN. Then Alfred Hitchcock got her Oscar nominated in REBECCA which she was not only the lead in, but it won the Academy Award for Best Film of the Year. In Hitchcock's next film SUSPICION Joan won the Oscar for Best Actress. When I saw this picture for the first time in 35mm, just 1 month ago, I was quickly taken in by the sincerity of the performances, the beautiful lighting and cinematography – and then Joan came along and everything lit up! I love how she jumps around like an excitable girl, her body language and actions of a child. And, she did it so well, she again was Oscar nominated (the third time in four years!) but lost to Jennifer Jones for THE SONG OF BURNADETTE. Joan's next film was JANE EYRE and later LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN.

Having heard for years that THE CONSTANT NYMPH was one of Joan Fontaine's favorite performances and knowing that Erich Wolfgang Korngold wrote the score for it, I looked forward to the film with much anticipation when I finally had a chance to see it.Unfortunately, aside from good performances from Charles Boyer and Alexis Smith, I found Miss Fontaine's Tessa just too cloying and simpering to be realistic. I thought she played the awkwardness of youth much better in LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, a really much more solid and forceful role. Tessa just seems to be a girl inordinately fond of a musician who doesn't realize, until too late, what the girl means to him.Oddly enough, the scenes between Boyer and Alexis Smith are more developed than any of the quieter scenes between Boyer and Fontaine. Smith makes the wife a sympathetic creature because her jealousy is easy to comprehend.An altogether disappointing film aside from a glorious score by Korngold that leads to the final concerto where he fully develops the love theme for Boyer and Fontaine.Unfortunately, most of the sets for the country scenes early in the story look like painted backdrops so that one never gets the feeling that Tessa's environment is a real one. Nor does the story give Joan Fontaine ample opportunity to fully flesh out her character since she is missing from much of the middle portion of the film.For a great Fontaine performance, I suggest viewing LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN with Joan at her best.