The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929 film)
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Language English | 7/10 IMDb Genre Drama Duration Country United States | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Release date March 30, 1929 (1929-03-30) Screenplay Ruth Cummings, Alice D.G. Miller, Marian Ainslee Cast (Camila (La Perichole)), (Uncle Pio), (Pepita), (Manuel), (Esteban), (Father Juniper) Similar movies Blackhat , The Conjuring , Spotlight , The Iron Mask , The Expendables , Mad Max | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929) is a film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in both silent and part-talkie versions. The film was directed by Charles Brabin and starred Lili Damita and Don Alvarado. Only the silent version exists at the George Eastman House film archive.
Contents
The film closely follows the bestselling 1927 Thornton Wilder novel of the same name and won the second Academy Award for Best Art Direction.
This first cinematic version of the classic book is a part-talkie, although the only surviving print is silent (housed in the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY). It is a straight-forward telling of the intermingled lives of a group of strangers doomed to die in a collapsing bridge accident. The Art Direction, paltry and unremarkable, surprisingly won an Oscar over the far more remarkable work nominated in THE IRON MASK. The special effect scene of the lovers plummeting with the bridge into the chasm is unforgettable and remarkably done.
Background and production
The film and novel are very loosely based on the real life story of Micaela Villegas (1748–1819), a famous Peruvian entertainer known as La Perichole. Her life was also the inspiration for the novella Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Merimee; the opera bouffe La Perichole by Jacques Offenbach; and Jean Renoir’s 1953 film Le Carrosse dor (The Golden Coach).
Remakes
The film was remade in 1944 with Lynn Bari, and once more in 2004, starring F. Murray Abraham, Gabriel Byrne, Robert De Niro, Kathy Bates, and Pilar Lopez de Ayala.
Similar Movies
The Patriot (1928). The Divine Lady (1929). Raquel Torres appears in The Bridge of San Luis Rey and White Shadows in the South Seas. Madame X (1929). In Old Arizona (1928).
Cast
References
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929 film) WikipediaThe Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929 film) IMDb The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929 film) themoviedb.org