The dialogue in this movie is ploddingly pedantically awful - and there is so much of it! Maybe it is because the film is set the early 19th Century and people are trying to make it look classy but everyone in this film gives full weight to every syllable of their every line. There is not a single "ain't," "shalln't," "can't," or "won't" in the whole thing. Everything is delivered in a very stagy mock-formal manner that, had it been camped up might have been amusing, but, as it wasn't, is merely grindingly dull.
The writer, Borden Chase, was obviously much happier with westerns - he wrote the classic Red River amongst others - and seems to have been overawed by the language when adapting a novel by such a revered writer as Victor Hugo (who also wrote Les Misrables) - or he was just plain out of his depth when attempting to write a 'period' piece. For whatever reason, the dialogue is stilted and clumsy; sounding at times like a dubbed Italian movie rather than a film written by someone who's first language was English.
Not as bad as some - but dull.
The writer, Borden Chase, was obviously much happier with westerns - he wrote the classic Red River amongst others - and seems to have been overawed by the language when adapting a novel by such a revered writer as Victor Hugo (who also wrote Les Misrables) - or he was just plain out of his depth when attempting to write a 'period' piece. For whatever reason, the dialogue is stilted and clumsy; sounding at times like a dubbed Italian movie rather than a film written by someone who's first language was English.
Not as bad as some - but dull.