Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

bkoganbing The Barretts of Wimpole Street was the most successful play written by Rudolph Besier and ran almost an entire year on Broadway in 1931. It starred Katherine Cornell as Elizabeth Barrett and featured Brian Aherne as Robert Browning and Charles Waldron as Edward Moulton Barrett. Though Norma Shearer gives one of her best performances as Elizabeth Barrett it might have been nice to see Kit Cornell do this. But as we well know, she like the Lunts disdained film for the legitimate stage.Elizabeth Barrett was indeed a woman of poor health though it surely did not impair her literary output. In 1845 Robert Browning after corresponding with her for some time did on impulse come to meet her and eventually they did run off to Italy and marry. Much to the considerable objection of her father.Whether Edward Moulton Barrett was as tyrannical and lascivious as Charles Laughton portrays him is open to debate and interpretation. Laughton plays him in much the same way he played Inspector Javert a year later in Les Miserables. Firm and unbending and inhuman with only a book of rules to guide his conduct. It may have been the author's dramatic license, but it surely does explain his opposition.On the other hand, he might have thought Robert Browning a deadbeat who couldn't make a living at the poetry gig. But the former makes a more interesting story.Fredric March is fine as the dashing literate Victorian gentleman that was Robert Browning. In the rest of the cast I did particularly like Marie Clayton as Laughton's dizzy niece with a lisp who Elizabeth for all her literary accomplishments envies.The Barretts of Wimpole Street is one classic piece of cinema from MGM during the height of their Tiffany period.

glen_esq Two famous personalities from Victorian England, and yet Hollywood can't be bothered giving them English accents. Laughton, despite his mutton chop sideburns and glowering demeanor, looks far too young to be Shearer's father (in actual life is only 3 years older than she). Well at least he adds some spirit to this rather stage bound, dull movie.March didn't convince me he could write a line of poetry. The engaged cousin is a female Elmer Fudd, advewse to evew pwonouncing an R. Shearer's illness is not explained, perhaps she recovers from a bad cold, we don't know, in any event she appears remarkably fit at movie's end.Maureen O'Sullivan, and Una O'Connor are good in supporting roles, and the costuming is well done.I'll remember this movie for Laughton's valiant attempt at portraying a middle aged man, all the more ineffective having seen him as a middle aged man in his more recent films.

EightyProof45 The Barretts of Wimpole Street is one of the finest play-to-film adaptations of the 1930s. Although its script, photography, and direction are all first-rate, it is still the grand performances that make this film appealing even today. The above-the-title trio had all won Academy Awards in the two or three years prior, and demonstrate their supreme thespian abilities in their roles. Towering above all is Norma Shearer, as bedridden invalid Elizabeth "Ba" Barrett. Although she speaks the lines in that sophisticated voice of hers, the scenes that strike the viewer greatest are ironically those without dialog at all. Take for example the scene immediately following her first visit with Browning. After he leaves her bedroom, the invalid struggles to her feet, and in one take, tries with all her heart to get over to the window so she can see him once more, leaving. In another scene, set a few months later, she is informed that Mr. Browning has come to visit her. Again, overcoming her bedridden state, she not only gets up, but also decides to go to see him downstairs instead of having him come up. Her eyes and hands express so much, and as she descends (without much dialog), her whole self-sense seem to elevate. Only a short while later, however, her domineering father orders her back upstairs. He wishes to carry her, but she insists on walking. In a magnificent William Daniels close-up, the camera stays on her face as her father tells her off camera that she will not succeed. Shearer's genius here lies in the change of facial expressions, as her reactions to her father's criticisms finally take their toll and she collapses. Quite simply, its another of Norma Shearer's brilliant characterizations, and one of the most different roles the actress ever played. March, second-billed as Browning, is a little histrionic. He gave a better performance opposite Shearer in 1932's Smilin' Through, but his performance here does not detract from the film, and his forcefulness seems strangely potent at times. As the glowering father, Laughton is amazing. The infamous "gleam" in his eye is there in many scenes, and when he carries his daughter up the stairs, its almost perverted (albeit brilliant). Maureen O'Sullavan is phenomenal as Elizabeth's young-and-in-love, rebellious sister, and Una O'Connor is in great form as her graceful maid. A feast for fine acting, The Barretts of Wimpole Street is one of the most appealing of all costume dramas of Hollywood's golden age. It still stands (as it shall for many years to come) as a lasting tribute to two larger-than-life literary icons. ****point of interest****in 1957, Barretts was admirably remade by the same director (Sidney Franklin) at M-G-M (as was this version). Although not nearly as good as the original, fine performances from Jennifer Jones (Elizabeth) and John Gielgud (Papa Barrett) again captured on film Rudolph Besier's classic roles.

Jamie Moffat This was a prestige effort in every way in 1934, gathering together the Academy Award winners of the past three years to appear together in the film version of a highly respected play. That the play no longer holds the stage, and that it is old fashioned melodrama, is hardly the point. The script may lean towards the treacly, but both Charles Laughton and in particular Norma Shearer give it s real lift.Laughton is somewhat hammy, playing Mr. Barrett as a slightly toned down Dr. Moreau. But I defy anyone to look away; and towards the end of the film he does give a fine impression of a man in torment. But it is Shearer who really carries the film; absolutely lovely performance, restrained and wisely underplaying with Laughton. Observe their final confrontation and note how Shearer's performance rises in intensity as Laughton's grows more subdued. This is a high class of ensemble acting.Only Fredric March lets the film down by being far too energetic as Robert Browning; meant to be cockily eccentric, he succeeds in putting your teeth on edge. Still, Norma loves him convincingly enough.A highly recommended film for a rainy afternoon.