Reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "An incredible hodge-podge, which never achieves an intellectual grip on its subject or her significance, but does maintain a rigid directorial distance – thus missing out as well on all the usual excitements of the biopic. One of the characteristics of even Richard Fleischer's more intelligent projects is his inability to find a style which illuminates his subject rather than imprisoning it; thus the scrappy Mandingo is calcified melodrama, frozen in the act of becoming social critique. Here, where Fleischer clearly has no strong viewpoint or thesis to push, the stiff objectivity encloses Sarah Bernhardt in a kind of creaking mummery – even while celebrating her rebellion against the stuffy theatre of the second Empire." [2]
Variety wrote: "The Incredible Sarah represents another achievement of Glenda Jackson, starring in the difficult title role as the willful, selfish and talented Sarah Bernhardt. Helen M. Strauss produced at Pinewood Studios this handsome and stylish Readers Digest project which in its mounting evokes the best of David O. Selznick-George Cukor period films. Richard Fleischer's direction is effective. ... This is the story of a theatrical personality, not your average housewife. The achievement here is that Jackson makes the character comprehensible and, in a qualified way, admirable, notwithstanding the clear evidence of a totally selfcentered nature. One respects Bernhardt even though not especially wanting her in the immediate family, yet that's the point – a famous actress is not like other women." [3]
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