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The Worst Film Ever

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Solid drama that was the genesis for The King and I is much darker in tone than the later musical. Rex Harrison and Irene Dunne do well by their characters and Lee J. Cobb is appropriately brusk as the king's right hand man. Gale Sondergaad is compassionate and regal as the number one wife. Linda Darnell perfectly haughty and full of youthful pride as the tragic Tuptim. Her fate is quite different than the one meet by Rita Moreno in the musical. This is the picture during which she was slightly burned during filming leading to her lifelong fear of fire, a sad irony since that was to be her end. A very good film but if you enter into viewing it expecting a similar experience to the Yul Brynner/Deborah Kerr picture you're in for quite a shock.

Since the making of Rogers & Hammerstien's The King and I ten years after this production, it has been difficult not to compare the two, especially as the later glossy cinema-scope musical version is virtually identical in all but the songs. The performance of Rex Harrison is actually rather good for a white man daubed with boot polish on his face, but of all the cast it is Lee J. Cobb (as the Prime Minister to the King) who stands out, so I am not sure why Gale Sondergaard (Tip Tem) was nominated for an Oscar rather than he. The production design and photography is excellent and fully deserves the Oscar awards. There is the usual Americanisation of a British story, thus devaluing its quality. Irene Dunn is an American actress playing an English rose, she tries hard, but she is not Deborah Kerr, and her "son" is totally American, no vestige of an English accent at all! What also spoils the believability of the story (which is loosely based upon exaggerated fact) is English porcelain clearly spelling Honour as Honor! Also, the King's obsession with the American Civil war and Abraham Lincoln is baffling when you consider that this story is set in a time when the divided American States were engrossed fighting amongst themselves, whilst Great Britain was the most powerful nation on earth and the British Empire at its height. The difference between a good film and an excellent film is in the detail, accuracy, respect to race and its believability – this could have been an excellent film had such an English story not been Americanised quite so clumsily.

In reading the comments about "Anna and the King of Siam,"I was especially drawn to the harsh political commentaries by your reviewers.When I was saw the film in the summer of 1946,the war was over only eleven months,and I was feeling generally upbeat.Consequently,watching this film,I felt upbeat about it,too.I thought then,and I still do(seeing it on tv),that it was a beautifully produced picture.One thing I noted at the time of its release,was that movie reviewers universally criticized Twentieth Century-Fox for not filming it in Technicolor.(Fox didn't repeat their mistake in their musical production with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr.)Their 1946 film garnered the Oscars for black and white cinematography, and black and white art direction, and interior decoration.(Costume design nominations didn't arrive until 1948--"Hamlet,"b&w,and "Joan of Arc,"color,won).If costume design had been a factor in 1946, I'm dead sure "Anna and the King of Siam" would have been a shoo-in.The musical version in 1956 did get the prize.Irene Dunne had a spate of fine film from 1936 to 1948,and this was leader among them.I can't imagine another actor living in 1946 playing the king.(Mr.Brynner appeared on the scene in the stage production around 1950.After that,he went to Hollywood).Gale Sondergaard received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.John Cromwell's direction was as artful as his work with "Since You Went Away."in 1944.For this film:A rating of A.

Too many people who have seen "the King and I" before viewing this film have unjustly compared it unfavorably to the musical. You can't compare Sir Rex and Mr. Brynner as the King. the performances are so different. Harrison gives a wonderfully cruel yet compassionate performance. he is a slyer, more intellectual Monkut than Brynner was. His scenes with Irene Dunne bubble with chemistry. Dunne is every inch the Anna that Deborah Kerr was and gets a scene that was removed from the remake. The performance she gives after the death of her son was stunning!I recommend this film over the musical for sheer consistency of style. Sir Rex and Ms. Dunne are wonderful together and the entire film its a gem fro start to finish.