By looking at the pictures of the real Belle, it's obvious to me that they should have looked more like Marjorie Main than Gene Tierney. But having already made impact in an earlier film on Frank James and considered the newest hopeful on the 20th Century Fox lot, Tierney got the title role for this, her fourth film. The film glamorizes her life as another valentine to the old south, a rather popular subject matter after "Jezebel" and "Gone With the Wind".
Top billed Randolph Scott is Sam Statr, the man she marries, and others in her life are Dana Andrews and brother John Sheppard, later known as Sheppard Strudwick. There's also the loveable but spicy Louise Beavers as her devoted servant and Elizabeth Patterson as a Ma Kettle like chatsxger who smokes a pipe. Lighter moments come from Chill Wills and Olin Howland. The discussion of Belle at the beginning and at the endby several black servants is poorly constructed and embarrassing.
The color photography is bright, pastel like and gorgeous, and a musical theme that combines old southern standards with a rousing new piece of music. Audiences were eating these fictional criminal biographies up back during the golden age, and would have to check out what little was written at the time to compare truth with fiction while today, a few clicks on our phones provides all the info we need. Tierney isn't just far too beautiful and well bred in the role. She was also at least a decade too young. But as entertainment, this is top notch even though the screenplay would have a huge nose if puppeteer Gepetto had asked if it was telling the truth.
Top billed Randolph Scott is Sam Statr, the man she marries, and others in her life are Dana Andrews and brother John Sheppard, later known as Sheppard Strudwick. There's also the loveable but spicy Louise Beavers as her devoted servant and Elizabeth Patterson as a Ma Kettle like chatsxger who smokes a pipe. Lighter moments come from Chill Wills and Olin Howland. The discussion of Belle at the beginning and at the endby several black servants is poorly constructed and embarrassing.
The color photography is bright, pastel like and gorgeous, and a musical theme that combines old southern standards with a rousing new piece of music. Audiences were eating these fictional criminal biographies up back during the golden age, and would have to check out what little was written at the time to compare truth with fiction while today, a few clicks on our phones provides all the info we need. Tierney isn't just far too beautiful and well bred in the role. She was also at least a decade too young. But as entertainment, this is top notch even though the screenplay would have a huge nose if puppeteer Gepetto had asked if it was telling the truth.