Misplaced Pages

24 Hours of a Woman's Life

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
(Redirected from Affair in Monte Carlo) 1952 film by Victor Saville

24 Hours of a Woman's Life
U.S. poster
Directed byVictor Saville
Written byWarren Chetham Strode
Based onnovella Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman by Stefan Zweig
Produced byIvan Foxwell
StarringMerle Oberon
Richard Todd
Leo Genn
CinematographyChristopher Challis
Edited byRichard Best
Music byRobert Gill
Philip Green
Production
company		Associated British Picture Corporation
Distributed byAssociated British-Pathé
Allied Artists (US)
Release date
  • 10 September 1952 (1952-09-10) (London)
Running time90 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Box office£95,702 (UK)

24 Hours of a Woman's Life, also known as Affair in Monte Carlo, is a 1952 British romantic drama film directed by Victor Saville and starring Merle Oberon, Richard Todd and Leo Genn. It is loosely based on the 1927 novella by Stefan Zweig. Produced by ABPC, it was shot at the company's Elstree Studios and on location in Monaco. The film's sets were designed by the art director Terence Verity.

Plot

Monsieur Blanc, the middle-aged proprietor of a café in Antibes, is eagerly preparing for his wedding to Henriette. He is devastated, however, when Henriette runs away with a young man she apparently only met the day before. Robert Sterling, a writer and one of the café patrons, tells the other diners that he has seen the same thing before: someone falling in love with a complete stranger.

He was playing host to Linda, a young widow whom he knew well, and three other guests aboard his yacht anchored in Monte Carlo. When he persuades her to visit the casino one night, she became irresistibly attracted to an unstable young man who became suicidal after losing all his money at roulette. Sterling describes how they fell deeply in love, and how they then had to face difficult decisions about the future.

Cast

Production

Actor Peter Reynolds was under contract to Associated British at the time.

Richard Todd wrote in his memoirs that although he loved filming in Monte Carlo "I realised quite early on... that this current movie was not going to break any records; the story was twee and slow-moving, and charming and beautifully-set though it was, gorgeous backgrounds are not the only requisite for a successful box-office picture."

Critical reception

The Spectator described it as "a film of such artificiality and bathos the very typewriter keys cling together to avoid describing it." TV Guide called the film a "poor sudser, although the background of the romantic Riviera and its fabulous casino provides some exotic interest."

Variety called it "novelettish."

References

  1. Vincent Porter, 'The Robert Clark Account', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 20 No 4, 2000 p499
  2. Nicholas Lezard (20 September 2003). "Review: Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman by Stefan Zweig | Books". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
  3. Affair in Monte Carlo at TCMDB
  4. "24 Hours of a Woman's Life | BFI | BFI". Explore.bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on 13 July 2012. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
  5. Vagg, Stephen (11 November 2024). "Peter Reynolds: Forgotten Cad". Filmink. Retrieved 11 November 2024.
  6. Todd, Richard (1989). In camera : an autobiography continued. Hutchinson. p. 6.
  7. "CINEMA » 11 Sep 1952 » The Spectator Archive". Archive.spectator.co.uk. 11 September 1952. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
  8. "Affair In Monte Carlo Review". Movies.tvguide.com. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
  9. "24 Hours of a Woman's Life". Variety. 17 September 1952. p. 6.

External links

Films directed by Victor Saville
Categories: