I've seen this film three times now and each time I see it, I see more layers to Mae Clarke's performance. It's a wonderful performance and looked at from 90 years later, her character is one who is entrenched in self-hate, depression and loneliness. These kinds of subjects would only be touched on in early Hollywood. Until the method actors of the 1950s, the deeper emotions of characters were things that were hidden from the main storyline.
Watching Clarke act, she does several small physical touches that show the great pain her character is in. Early on, when she tries to rush Roy out of her apartment, Myra refuses to look him in the eye. Roy is so upset at her roller-coaster of emotions, he grabs her to look into her eyes. James Whale gets a close up of Mae and once she finally makes eye contact with him, her anger turns into an avalanche of tears. She spends a lot of her time self-hating and unable to look Roy in the eyes. It's a heartbreaking moment. In the very end, Myra similarly is avoiding Roy as he must make his train to go back to the war - her self-loathing prevents her from allowing herself to agree to marry him. He insists on loving her and forgives her for having had to prostitute herself, and she hugs him. Still, the self-loathing in her, you see her hand on his back patting him rather than holding tightly. However, a moment later she completely gives in to her love and fully embraces him. The second hug is her allowing herself to feel the love she truly feels for him.
Her self-hate and shame over her prostituting herself and her painful childhood cause her to constantly go back-and-forth in her behavior with others. She has lived such an isolated and lonely life that she clearly suffers from deep depression. If one can read between the lines, we can see director Whale and Clarke showing a beautiful soul who just cannot overcome the shame of her very rough life; The scarring is too thick.
I could probably write an essay on this, but this film succeeds where other early sound films fail in how it is a foray into what would become a character study by the 1950s. Myra grows enough in the film that she can allow Roy to love her in the end, but she can never truly get over her deep anguish.
Douglas Montgomery is also to be commended for a sensitive and thoughtful performance as a somewhat naive, but well-meaning and loving young soldier who, like Myra, is just a lonely person in the middle of the war.
James Whale's own experiences as a soldier in WW1 certainly must have helped him in delivering the pathos of these characters. It's also the first film he made in which he began his trademark style - dolly moves through walls, comic side characters, and tender close-ups of characters in pain - in this film - the tragic Myra; in the future - the tragic Frankenstein monster.
This is a wonderful, tragic love story, and a film about how depressed, lonely and self-hating characters can never truly rid themselves of their pain. Mae Clarke suffered nervous breakdowns in her life in the years following this film. Considering the intensity of her performance, one wonders how much of this pain she may have really lived. She gives one of the best female performances of the 1930s in Waterloo Bridge and certainly should have won an Oscar for this.
Watching Clarke act, she does several small physical touches that show the great pain her character is in. Early on, when she tries to rush Roy out of her apartment, Myra refuses to look him in the eye. Roy is so upset at her roller-coaster of emotions, he grabs her to look into her eyes. James Whale gets a close up of Mae and once she finally makes eye contact with him, her anger turns into an avalanche of tears. She spends a lot of her time self-hating and unable to look Roy in the eyes. It's a heartbreaking moment. In the very end, Myra similarly is avoiding Roy as he must make his train to go back to the war - her self-loathing prevents her from allowing herself to agree to marry him. He insists on loving her and forgives her for having had to prostitute herself, and she hugs him. Still, the self-loathing in her, you see her hand on his back patting him rather than holding tightly. However, a moment later she completely gives in to her love and fully embraces him. The second hug is her allowing herself to feel the love she truly feels for him.
Her self-hate and shame over her prostituting herself and her painful childhood cause her to constantly go back-and-forth in her behavior with others. She has lived such an isolated and lonely life that she clearly suffers from deep depression. If one can read between the lines, we can see director Whale and Clarke showing a beautiful soul who just cannot overcome the shame of her very rough life; The scarring is too thick.
I could probably write an essay on this, but this film succeeds where other early sound films fail in how it is a foray into what would become a character study by the 1950s. Myra grows enough in the film that she can allow Roy to love her in the end, but she can never truly get over her deep anguish.
Douglas Montgomery is also to be commended for a sensitive and thoughtful performance as a somewhat naive, but well-meaning and loving young soldier who, like Myra, is just a lonely person in the middle of the war.
James Whale's own experiences as a soldier in WW1 certainly must have helped him in delivering the pathos of these characters. It's also the first film he made in which he began his trademark style - dolly moves through walls, comic side characters, and tender close-ups of characters in pain - in this film - the tragic Myra; in the future - the tragic Frankenstein monster.
This is a wonderful, tragic love story, and a film about how depressed, lonely and self-hating characters can never truly rid themselves of their pain. Mae Clarke suffered nervous breakdowns in her life in the years following this film. Considering the intensity of her performance, one wonders how much of this pain she may have really lived. She gives one of the best female performances of the 1930s in Waterloo Bridge and certainly should have won an Oscar for this.