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Excellent but underrated film

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Truncating the title and adding a little addendum of his own to the story director Otto Preminger offer's up a well polished version of Oscar Wilde's, Lady Windermere's Fan. A devastating Victorian satire in its day Preminger updates the opening to post war London with two of the now doddering principals drawn once again together over the fan re-kindling memories of when it first played such an important role in their lives.At an auction selling objects from bombed buildings Lady Erlynne (Madeline Carroll) attempts to reclaim a fan given her decades earlier. The auctioneer is reluctant to part with it on her say so unless she can find a witness. She goes and looks up "cad from the past" Lord Darlington (George Sanders) to vouch for her and after an initial re-buff the two recall the bell époque together and how his deviousness almost ended a marriage while her sacrifice saved it.Preminger seamlessly injects the war as a catalyst to springboard the play as well as add a sly touch that reveals itself comically at the end. With his ability to speak film language as well as anyone The Fan flows with long takes and fine performances by the principals Carroll, Jean Crain, Richard Greene and George Sanders who seemed born to play Wilde characters.The Fan is one well crafted work that Preminger elevates by eschewing the easy task of filming a classic stage satire and adding a stark but unobtrusive contemporary sub plot that not only advances the storyline but in the true spirit of Wilde pays homage to his timeless words.

This 1949 version of Oscar Wildes Lady Windermere's Fan is lovely, performed with wry wit and delicious innuendos. Madeleine Carroll plays Mrs. Erlynne brilliantly along with George Sanders as Lord Robert Darlington, together they take us back to a different era. The now elderly Mrs. Erlynne recounts memories of love , loss and a mother's sacrifice and this story is played out in flashback in Victorian era London, with Jeanne Crain as the beautiful, young Lady Margaret Windermere and Richard Greene as Lord Arthur Windermere. Martita Hunt amuses as the Duchess of Berwick, a typical gossipy, upper-class matron. This is not a classic film of Oscar Wildes classic story, but it is very thoughtfully done and this film version moves along at a pleasurable pace. I must correct a fellow reviewer, we are told the fate of Lady and Lord Windermere, early in the story Mrs. Erlynne tells Lord Darlington she has visited their grave as they were killed together in the first bombing of London during WW II. I enjoyed this story about the hypocrisy and morals during the Victorian era , and Madeleines Carroll's delightful performance I would watch again. But this is a film I encourage the reader to watch and decide for themselves.

Still, another picture depicting a mother's sacrifice. Don't you think it was naive of Jeanne Crain never to realize that Madeleine Carroll was her mother? Who else but a mother would speak to Crain in the way Carroll did?Carroll steals the film as a woman with a past who returns to London to secure her dead daughter's fan. The only way she can prove her involvement with the fan is to reintroduce herself to the elderly George Sanders, once a lover of the Crain character so many years ago.This is definitely a film describing the mores, culture and gossip of London society, circa turn of the century. Martita Hunt, as the duchess, is just perfect in the part of the gossiper thriving attention.Carroll gave up a potential life of luxury to save her daughter's marriage. Didn't anyone think it odd that Carroll, so much older, could actually be the lover of Crain's husband, Richard Greene, her son-in-law?

Based on an Oscar Wilde,a delightful bittersweet period piece which is some kind of reductio ad aburdum that conjugal love can be the way to happiness and that you must not throw it all away.A long flashback,where a fan sold in auction becomes the Madeleine de Proust which revives memories of long ago,when the two people who meet again after all those years return to a time when they were young and handsome.It's also a good lesson in teaching us that things are not necessarily what they seem.It is also a scathing attack on this society of snubs ,those privileged classes whose favorite pastime is putting their fellow men (and women) down.