Based on the 50 Shades of Grey of it's time - a racy bestseller about life in restoration England that became a phenomenon with its spirited heroine (Linda Darnell) who sleeps her way to the top of English society. She has a true love, a dashing sailor (Cornel Wilde) who she does it all for, which is reminiscent of Scarlett O'Hara's pursuit of Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, something I'm sure was intentional. But there's no Rhett Butler who chases after her, giving this movie a hollow core.
And it's a major problem. While Darnell loves Wilde, even saving his life, he doesn't seem particularly interested in her apart from the occasional root. Every time another guy turns up saying "she's mine" he goes "well fair enough" and takes off (he does kill a person in a duel over her but only very reluctantly and he tries to get out of it a lot), and then at the end he comes along to take away his son... and I think we're supposed to feel that's a good thing, because Wilde has married a nice girl. (She looks prim and stuck up to me but she's virtuous and so therefore good.) Wilde asks the kid if he wants to go to Virginia, he says sure, if mum coming, mum says no, and he takes the kid. What the...?
This is mean - it's a mean spirited movie. Darnell keeps having to suffer for crimes like not wanting to be poor, bored or stuck in a Puritan marriage. So she sleeps around, big deal. Good for her. She's far more sympathetic than Scarlett O'Hara, who was genuinely selfish and self centred - which means you feel bad because she suffers.
There are other problems too. I can't recall a movie that was so undercast - Cornel Wilde is fine in other movies but seems out of his element here and badly lacking in charisma in a role that cries out for, say, Stewart Granger. I hated his character too - he's a selfish prick. Linda Darnell can be wonderful but doesn't have what it takes to make Amber come alive - she loses her power as a red head. I wonder why Maureen O'Hara wasn't cast?
The support cast is full of people like Richard Greene, Glenn Langan and Richard Haydn - dull wallpaper actors and hard to tell apart amidst all the ruffles. The only one to stand out is George Sanders - although Jessica Tandy and Ann Revere are alright. Daryl Zanuck was one of the great Hollywood producers and normally the studios were great at this stuff but they missed the boat with this one.
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