The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929 film)

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The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The-Bridge-of-San-Luis-Rey-El-puente-de-San-Luis-Rey.jpg
Directed by Charles Brabin
Written by Marian Ainslee
Ruth Cummings
Alice D. G. Miller
Thornton Wilder (novel)
Produced by Hunt Stromberg
Starring Lili Damita
Duncan Renaldo
Raquel Torres
Cinematography Merritt B. Gerstad
Edited by Margaret Booth
Music byCarli Elinor
Peter Brunelli (uncredited)
Production
company
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • March 30, 1929 (1929-03-30)
Running time
86 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguagesSound (Part-Talkie)
English Intertitles

The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929) is a sound part-talkie film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film was directed by Charles Brabin and starred Lili Damita and Don Alvarado. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The sound was recorded via the Western Electric sound-on-film process.

Contents

The film closely follows the bestselling 1927 Thornton Wilder novel of the same name and won the second Academy Award for Best Art Direction. [1]

Plot

Cast

Background and production

The film and novel are very loosely based on the real-life story of Micaela Villegas (17481819), a famous Peruvian entertainer known as La Perichole. Her life was also the inspiration for the novella Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée; the opéra bouffe La Périchole by Jacques Offenbach; and Jean Renoir’s 1953 film Le Carrosse d'or (The Golden Coach).

Preservation

The complete soundtrack for this film survives on Vitaphone] type discs. A mute print of the film exists at the George Eastman House film archive.

Remakes

The film was remade in 1944 with Lynn Bari, and once more in 2004, starring F. Murray Abraham, Gabriel Byrne, Robert De Niro, Kathy Bates, and Pilar López de Ayala.

See also

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References

  1. "NY Times: The Bridge of San Luis Rey". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times . Baseline & All Movie Guide. 2012. Archived from the original on October 17, 2012. Retrieved December 7, 2008.