Review of Beloved Infidel

In 1936, the witty columnist Sheilah Graham (Deborah Kerr) leaves her noble British fiancé and travels in the Queen Mary from Southampton, England, to New York. She seeks out the editor of the North American Newspaper Alliance John Wheeler (Philip Ober) offering her services but he sends her to the Daily Mirror. Sheilah becomes successful and John offers a job position in Hollywood to write gossips about the stars. When Sheilah meets the decadent writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (Gregory Peck), they immediately fall in love for each other. Sheilah discovers that Scott is accepting any job to write screenplay to financially support his wife Zelda that is in asylum and his daughter that is in a boarding school. She opens her heart to him and tells the truth about her origins; but their relationship is affected by the drinking problem of Scott.

"Beloved Infidel" is a melodramatic soap-opera based on the true romance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sheilah Graham along the last four years of the life of the American writer. However, the screenplay is based on the book written by Sheilah Graham that is pictured as an angel that helps the decadent and cruel drunkard. I do not know the biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald but this version is shallow and not independent. Gregory Peck is weak in the dramatic parts and the lovely Deborah Kerr is too sweet even when insulted considering the profile of the controversial reporter Sheilah Graham, considered a bitch by the industry. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Ídolo de Cristal" ("The Crystal Idol")