Anthony Adverse is a 1936 American drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy

Mervyn LeRoy

Mervyn LeRoy was an American film director, producer and sometime actor.-Early life:Born to Jewish parents in San Francisco, California, his family was financially ruined by the 1906 earthquake...

. The screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Sheridan Gibney is based on the sprawling 1,224-page novel of the same title by Hervey Allen

Hervey Allen

William Hervey Allen was an American author.-Biography:He graduated from University of Pittsburgh in 1915, where he also became a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity....

.

Plot

The plot of the epic

Epic film

An epic is a genre of film that emphasizes human drama on a grand scale. Epics are more ambitious in scope than other film genres, and their ambitious nature helps to differentiate them from similar genres such as the period piece or adventure film...

 costume drama

Costume drama

A costume drama or period drama is a period piece in which elaborate costumes, sets and properties are featured in order to capture the ambiance of a particular era.The term is usually used in the context of film and television...

 follows the globe-trotting adventures of the title character, the illegitimate offspring of Maria Bonnyfeather, the bride of the cruel and devious middle-aged nobleman

Nobility

Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...

 Marquis Don Luis, and Denis Moore. After he learns of his wife's affair, Don Luis takes her away but Denis tracks them down at an inn, where Don Luis kills him in a duel of swords. Months later Maria dies giving birth to her son at a chalet in the Alps. Don Luis leaves the infant at a convent

Convent

A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...

 near Leghorn, Italy, (where the nun

Nun

A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...

s christen him Anthony) and lies to Maria's father, wealthy merchant John Bonnyfeather, telling him that the infant is also dead. Ten years later, completely by coincidence, the child is apprenticed to Bonnyfeather, his real grandfather, who discovers his relationship to the boy but keeps it a secret from him. He gives the boy the surname Adverse in acknowledgement of the difficult life he has led.

As an adult, Anthony falls in love with Angela Giuseppe, the cook's daughter, and the couple wed. Soon after the ceremony, Anthony departs for Havana

Havana

Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...

 to save Bonnyfeather's fortune. The note Angela leaves Anthony is blown away and he is unaware that she has gone to another city. Instead, assuming he has abandoned her, she pursues a career as an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 singer. Anthony leaves Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

 for Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, where he becomes corrupted by his involvement with the slave trade. He is redeemed by his friendship with Brother François, and following the friar

Friar

A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders.-Friars and monks:...

's death he returns to Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 to find Bonnyfeather has died and his housekeeper, Faith Paleologus (now married to Don Luis), will inherit the man's estate fortune unless Anthony goes to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 to claim his inheritance.

In Paris, Anthony is reunited with his friend, prominent banker Vincent Nolte, whom he saves from bankruptcy

Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....

 by giving him his fortune. Through the intercession of impressario Debrulle, Anthony finds Angela and discovers she bore him a son. She fails to reveal she is Mlle. Georges, a famous opera star and the mistress of Napoleon Bonaparte. When Anthony learns her secret, he departs for America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 with his son in search of a better life.

Principal cast

• Fredric March
  Fredric March
  Fredric March was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr...
  
   ..... Anthony Adverse
• Olivia de Havilland
  Olivia de Havilland
  Olivia Mary de Havilland is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.-Early life:Olivia de Havilland...
  
   ..... Angela Giuseppe
• Donald Woods
  Donald Woods (actor)
  Donald Woods was a Canadian-born American film and television actor whose career spanned six decades....
  
   ..... Vincent Nolte
• Anita Louise
  Anita Louise
  -Life and career:Born Anita Louise Fremault in New York, New York, she made her acting debut on Broadway at the age of six, and within a year was appearing regularly in Hollywood films...
  
   ..... Maria
• Edmund Gwenn
  Edmund Gwenn
  Edmund Gwenn was an English theatre and film actor.-Background:Born Edmund John Kellaway in Wandsworth, London , and educated at St. Olave's School and later at King's College London, Gwenn began his acting career in the theatre in 1895...
  
   ..... John Bonnyfeather
• Claude Rains
  Claude Rains
  Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
  
   ..... Marquis Don Luis
• Gale Sondergaard
  Gale Sondergaard
  Gale Sondergaard was an American actress.Sondergaard began her acting career in theatre, and progressed to films in 1936. She was the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her film debut in Anthony Adverse...
  
   ..... Faith Paleologus
• Akim Tamiroff
  Akim Tamiroff
  Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff was an Armenian actor. He won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.Tamiroff was born in Tiflis, Russian Empire , of Armenian ethnicity. He trained at the Moscow Art Theatre drama school. He arrived in the U.S. in 1923 on a tour with a troupe of actors...
  
   ..... Carlo Cibo
• Pedro de Cordoba
  Pedro de Cordoba
  Pedro de Cordoba , was an American actor.Pedro de Cordoba, who appeared in his first film, a 1915 version of Carmen, was actually a classically trained theatre actor who confessed he did not enjoy appearing in silent films nearly as much as he liked working on stage...
  
   ..... Brother François
• Louis Hayward
  Louis Hayward
  Louis Charles Hayward was a British actor born in South Africa.-Biography:Born in Johannesburg, Hayward began his screen work in British films, notably as Simon Templar in Leslie Charteris' The Saint in New York.] In 1939 he played a dual role in The Man in the Iron Mask.During World War II,...
  
   ..... Denis Moore
• Ralph Morgan
  Ralph Morgan
  Ralph Morgan was a Hollywood film, stage and character actor, and the older brother of Frank Morgan .-Early life:...
  
   ..... Debrulle
• Henry O'Neill
  Henry O'Neill
  Henry O'Neill was a film actor known for playing gray-haired fathers, lawyers, and similarly dignified roles during the 1930s and 1940s.-Life and career:...
  
   .... Father Xavier
• Billy Mauch
  Billy and Bobby Mauch
  William John Mauch , known as Billy, and his identical twin brother, Robert Joseph Mauch, , known as Bobby, were child actors in the 1930s...
  
   ..... Anthony Adverse (age 10)

Principal production credits

• Assistant Director
  Assistant director
  The role of an Assistant director include tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of health and safety of the crew...
  
   ..... William H. Cannon
• Original Music
  Film score
  A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
  
   ..... Erich Wolfgang Korngold
  Erich Wolfgang Korngold
  Erich Wolfgang Korngold was an Austro-Hungarian film and romantic music composer. While his compositional style was considered well out of vogue at the time he died, his music has more recently undergone a reevaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest...
  
  
• Music supervision
  Music supervision
  A music supervisor is an individual who combines music and visual media. In the musical theatre industry, a music supervisor is often responsible for managing a team of music directors working on any number of musical productions.-Description:...
  
   ..... Leo F. Forbstein
  Leo F. Forbstein
  Leo F. Forbstein was an American film musical director and orchestra conductor who worked on more than 550 projects during a twenty-year period.-Early years:...
  
  
• Cinematography
  Cinematography
  Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
  
   ..... Tony Gaudio
  Tony Gaudio
  Tony Gaudio was an Italian American cinematographer and the first to create a montage sequence for a film....
  
  
• Art Direction
  Art director
  The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
  
   ..... Anton Grot
  Anton Grot
  Anton Grot was a Polish art director. He was born in Kelbasin, Poland and died in Stanton, California.-Awards:Grot was nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Art Direction:* The Sea Hawk...
  
  
• Costume Design
  Costume design
  Costume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such...
  
   ..... Milo Anderson

Awards and nominations

• Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
  Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
  Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
  
   (Gale Sondergaard, winner)
• Academy Award for Best Cinematography
  Academy Award for Best Cinematography
  The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...
  
   (winner)
• Academy Award for Best Film Editing
  Academy Award for Film Editing
  The Academy Award for Film Editing is one of the annual awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Nominations for this award are closely correlated with the Academy Award for Best Picture. Since 1981, every film selected as Best Picture has also been nominated for the Film Editing...
  
   (winner)
• Academy Award for Best Musical Scoring (Leo F. Forbstein, winner)
• Academy Award for Best Assistant Director
  Academy Award for Best Assistant Director
  In the first year of this award it referred to no specific film.*1933 winners** Charles Barton ** Rick James ** Charles Dorian ** Fred Fox ** Gordon Hollingshead ** Dewey Starkey...
  
   (nominee)
• Academy Award for Best Art Direction
  Academy Award for Best Art Direction
  The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...
  
   (nominee)
• Academy Award for Best Picture
  Academy Award for Best Picture
  The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
  
   (nominee)

Critical reception

In his review in the New York Times, Frank S. Nugent described the film as "a bulky, rambling and indecisive photoplay which has not merely taken liberties with the letter of the original but with its spirit . . . For all its sprawling length, [the novel] was cohesive and well rounded. Most of its picaresque quality has been lost in the screen version; its philosophy is vague, its characterization blurred and its story so loosely knit and episodic that its telling seems interminable."

The film was named one of the National Board of Review's Top Ten pictures of the year and ranked eighth in the Film Daily

Film Daily

The Film Daily was a daily publication that existed from 1915 to 1970 in the United States.For 55 years, Film Daily was the main source of news on the film and television industries...

critics' poll.

Historian Bob Packett recommended this film in January 2008 for its scene in which a smaller vessel defeats a larger one through exploitation of the tactics of war at sea.

In culture

The initial theme of the second movement of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's violin concerto

Violin Concerto (Korngold)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold composed his Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, in 1945.-Instrumentation:Working in the lush, lyrical idiom reminiscent of fin de siècle Vienna, Korngold scored the concerto for elaborate instrumental forces...

 was drawn from the music he composed for this film. English singer Julia Gilbert adopted the name of the film's main character when recording for the London-based el records

El records

él Records is an independent record label from the UK founded by Mike Alway. Alway, who cut his teeth in the late seventies working with The Soft Boys and promoting clubs and concerts in Richmond, south-west London, joined Cherry Red Records in 1980 to work alongside the company's founder, Iain...

 label in the late 1980s.

Screen legend Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...

 (1925–2010), who was born Bernard Schwartz, named himself for the titular character; the novel from which this film was adapted was the actor's favorite. Curtis, who soared to fame with his role in Houdini

Houdini (film)

Houdini is a 1953 biographical film about the life of the magician and escapologist Harry Houdini. It was made by Paramount Pictures, directed by George Marshall and produced by George Pal from a screenplay by Philip Yordan, based on the book Houdini by Harold Kellock. The music score was by Roy...

as the legendary illusionist, was buried with a Stetson hat, an Armani scarf, driving gloves, an iPhone and a copy of his favorite novel, Anthony Adverse.

Jack Benny

Jack Benny

Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...

parodied Anthony Adverse on the October 11 and 18 episodes of his "Jell-o Show" in 1936.