Love, sometimes unrequited but always "intense". Young Tessa Sanger Joan Fontaine is deeply in love with much elder composer Lewis Dodd Charles Boyer , who hasn't been able to succeed as musician. Tessa's father another musician played by Montagu Love, says that Lewis will have to love and suffer because of it, to attain an achievement as a composer.The wondrous music by masterful German composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold is a marvel, pure poetry, which sets the perfect mood for this melancholic Love Story; it was really a privilege for Warner Brothers Pictures to have had the fortune of counting him as one of the members of its staff; Korngold's music is an awesome contribution to the Motion Pictures.As I said before Joan Fontaine's perfect as the young Tessa. She was something like 26 years old when this movie was filmed and she portrays convincingly and believably the love-stricken teenager. Boyer is good as the intense composer and plays sensitively his scenes with Fontaine. Kudos too for Alexis Smith, who plays Florence, Tessa's elder cousin with great skill and sentiment.Others in the magnificent cast are Charles Coburn as Tessa's lovable uncle, Brenda Marshall as Tessa's sister, Dame May Witty as a Dowager British Aristocrat, Peter Lorre as a friend of the Sanger family, Eduardo Ciannelli as Roberto, a faithful servant of the Sanger family, Jean Muir, etc.Again, it's a shame that this wonderful, utterly moving film is out of circulation due to legal issues, if they didn't exist it should belong to TCM's Library just like "Letty Lynton" .

early scenes in which she was playing her characters at their most youthful. The Constant Nymph offers some fascinatingly complex characterizations, including Alexis Smith's Florence, whom we hate and feel sorry for at the same time for stealing away Charles Boyer from Joan Fontaine . This is a very special film with some truly beautiful music. Catch it if you can!

CONSTANT NYMPH 1943 is mostly forgotten because the author's will stated after the original release film it could only be shown at universities or museums. Nymph, definition. A nymph in Greek mythology is a minor nature goddess typically associated with a remote location. Nymphs personify the creative and fostering activities of nature and identify with the life- giving outflow of springs. Nymphs tended to frequent areas distant from humans, but could be encountered by lone travelers outside the village, where their music might be heard, and the traveler could spy on their dancing or bathing. For me, the title THE CONSTANT NYMPH might mean, always innocent or always nurturing. Source & other versions. The book by Margaret Kennedy, THE CONSTANT NYMPH was a runaway bestseller when published in Britain in 1924. One review from The Atlantic magazine said, "It's a novel about ideas... as well as the sort of delicious and merciless emotions that can make people exuberant or desperate." It was also quiet controversial. In 1926, Margaret Kennedy along with Basil Dean adapted THE CONSTANT NYMPH for a three act play for the London stage starring Noel Coward and Edna Best. Playwright Basil Dean jump started his career by turning this novel into a very successful play and backing the first two movie versions first in 1928 and again in 1933. Basil Dean used his profits to form Associated Talking Pictures an important film factory that later became Ealing Studios. Cast, supporting. Among the supporting cast is Peter Lorre who wanted to prove he had more range than playing Mr. Moto or criminal types. Charles Coburn, the white haired heavy set comedy relief who was an overnight discovery at age 61 is best known for THE MORE THE MERRIER and GENTLEMENT PREFER BLONDES, but in tonight's film he has trouble pronouncing the name Roberto and instead says Robert 'Oh. And grand dame, Dame May Witty plays the old socialite that is charmed out of her silver slippers by Charles Boyer. Cast leads. Famed composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, his first movie score was for A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, then CAPTAIN BLOOD and his most famous is THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. But classical music fans point to this films concluding piece the tone poem, TOMORROW as some of his most beautiful he ever wrote. You know what the biggest complaint about this composer was – he didn't write enough music! The third lead is played by Alexis Smith whose early Hollywood nickname was The Dynamite Girl. Alexis is better remembered for costarring with handsome leading men in costume films, here she gets to really act – and what a delicate tight rope act it is! Charles Boyer became a star in France as the lead in LILIOM which was remade in this country as the musical CAROUSEL. His better American films include GASLIGHT, but he is mostly known for his romantic films like: ALGIERS, LOVE AFFAIR and ALL THIS AND HEAVEN TOO. He often played lovers or musicians. Director Edmund Goulding specialized in luminescent, star-studded dramas for MGM like the Oscar winning GRAND HOTEL. Well Goulding got permission and the assignment to make this film but Warner bros. studio wanted him to cast Errol Flynn and Joan Leslie in the leads. But he knew he wanted Charles Boyer to play the musician, but who to play the girl, Tessa? Well as these things happen only in Hollywood, one night at Romanoff's Restaurant he spotted his old friend actor Brian Aherne who had starred in the 1933 version of THE CONSTANT NYMPH in the role as the composer. It seems Brian and his then wife who was also a licensed pilot had just flown in from their ranch. Well Goulding asked Aherne who he should cast as Tessa the young girl, she had to be a name and skinny, frail and flat chested? And Joan said, "Why not me?" To which Golding responded, "Who are You?" To which she said, "Joan Fontaine." He was stunned, thought for a minute REBECCA, SUSPICION then said, "Right!" and jumped up to call the studio shouting he had found his Tessa! And she wrote in her autobiography she loved the way he ran the set and carefully directed her! Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland, hard to believe she's Japanese, born Oct. 22, 1917 in Tokyo, Japan. She changed her name to that of her actress mother's stage name of Fontaine. She was cast opposite Fred Astaire in A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS and had small parts in GUNGA DIN & THE WOMEN. Then Alfred Hitchcock got her Oscar nominated in REBECCA which she was not only the lead in, but it won the Academy Award for Best Film of the Year. In Hitchcock's next film SUSPICION Joan won the Oscar for Best Actress. When I saw this picture for the first time in 35mm, just 1 month ago, I was quickly taken in by the sincerity of the performances, the beautiful lighting and cinematography – and then Joan came along and everything lit up! I love how she jumps around like an excitable girl, her body language and actions of a child. And, she did it so well, she again was Oscar nominated the third time in four years! but lost to Jennifer Jones for THE SONG OF BURNADETTE. Joan's next film was JANE EYRE and later LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN.

of. Tessa has always been in love with Dodd, but at her age, it seems like a childhood crush.Sanger dies that night, and in the next scene, we see that Charles has arrived with his gorgeous daughter Florence Smith and the smitten Lewis marries her immediately. Toni marries; Tessa and her younger sister ultimately go off to school but run away. The younger girl then joins Toni, but Tessa stays in the house with Lewis and Florence.Florence is jealous of Tessa's close relationship with Lewis; Tessa understands his music and knows his potential, and they have a long history. Florence's resentment of her becomes more and more obvious.This is a really wonderful film, so lovely that it's surprising it hasn't gotten more attention, though Joan Fontaine was nominated for an Oscar. She's 26 here, playing fourteen. In the beginning, she's all arms and legs, awkward, lanky, and a ball of energy. Put it this way - I dated this movie as being before Rebecca! So was she convincing? Yes. Despite her Oscar nominations, I still think Fontaine is underrated. One isn't certain how much time has passed during the film, but naturally the character cleans up and wears better clothes. She then seems more mature.Boyer does a marvelous job as the composer searching for his voice through music; and Alexis Smith is great as she goes from friendly, polite with an edgy, and then just plain awful. The rest of the cast is top-notch, with Lorre as a suitor of Toni's who becomes her husband."The Constant Nymph" is a story of unrequited love, a search for self, and the self-expression an artist can have once he's allowed himself to feel.Don't miss this when it comes around again on TCM as it doesn't look like it's on DVD. Thank goodness for TCM bringing us these forgotten gems once in a while.

that it was Charles Boyer who was in the film; we were mistaken in thinking it was Brian Aherne, and that may be one of the reasons we could not find it!

anthologies . Thankfully my copy of this film is pristine and that improves one's enjoyment of it.Striking Alexis Smith as the unloved wife delivers a mighty performance, and almost steals the picture from Joan Fontaine and Charles Boyer. The supporting actors are also very good, including Charles Coburn, Peter Lorre, Brenda Marshall, Dame May Witty, and Jean Muir. I admit I was a bit frustrated by the character of the musician played by Charles Boyer. Men who marry women just because they are attracted to them and not because they love them irk me to no end. That was the situation here and it sets the viewer up for a very frustrating experience by the end of the picture. The Constant Nympth is a decent romantic melodrama, with a very touching conclusion, but it's not outstanding or unforgettable, like Letter From An Unknown Woman surely is.

pianist/composer. Even without the rape charge I don't Flynn would have been suitable casting in that role in any event.But it was Joan Fontaine who got the Oscar recognition with a nomination for Best Actress playing a teenager of barely legal age who has a congenital heart problem and who charms Boyer. In the original novel and the play made from it, Boyer's character actually runs off with the Fontaine character.Some of the same territory was tread on by Billy Wilder in The Major And The Minor, but Ginger Rogers was only pretending to be an adolescent.Boyer meets Fontaine and her siblings Brenda Marshall, Jean Muir, and Joyce Reynolds at the home of their father Montagu Love. When he dies the girls go to their uncle Charles Coburn to live, except Marshall who marries Peter Lorre. That in itself is something, how often does Peter Lorre get the girl? Boyer marries Coburn's daughter Alexis Smith, but Smith senses something wrong and develops a jealousy of Fontaine. Turns out that while Boyer doesn't do anything, she's right to be suspicious.The novel by Margaret Kennedy was turned into a play by Basil Dean and debuted in London with no less than Noel Coward and Edna Best in the leads. It ran 148 performances on Broadway in the 1926-27 season and two film versions across the pond were made, a silent with Ivor Novello and another sound version that starred Brian Aherne who would later marry Joan Fontaine. I'd be curious to see how the whole May/September romance was handled there.Fontaine lost the Oscar that year to newcomer Jennifer Jones who was also playing a juvenile of a different kind in The Song Of Bernadette.The Constant Nymph is a strange yet curiously winning film. One wonders how the story would be done today in a film.