An epically long Novel, Vanity Fair is here somehow truncated into less than an hour and a half. Made in 1935 it was the first film produced in full technicolour and it does look beautifully striking. There are also some first rate cinematic shots such as an overhead view of whirling couples on a ballroom dancefloor or a bugler standing beneath a red lantern, engulfed in its light. Silhouettes play an important part, too, most notably in the looming shadow of the Emperor Napoleon after the battle of Waterloo. To place it in its time, we have cameos from William Faversham as The Duke of Wellington and Olaf Hytten as the Prince Regent. But the leading, fictional characters are the ones that the film preoccupies us with. Miriam Hopkins in the eponymous role gives us a sparky effervescent Becky Sharp with more than a hint of brassiness and it is her 'show' with many of the novels other principal characters not getting much of a look in. Those that do make an impact are Cedric Hardwicke as a cold fish of a lecher, Lord Steyne and particularly, Nigel Bruce who gives a wonderfully amusing and endearing portrait of Joseph Sedley, the boobus Brittanicus type of role he went on to specialise in. The film is wonderful to look at and is intermittently engaging and amusing but sometimes grates on the nerves- subtle it ain't and everything, be it emotion or comedy, is overbaked.

This gorgeous film, the first full length Technicolor feature, does a fine job of capturing the spirit of Thackeray's "Vanity Fair", but the story is so rushed and condensed that it registers more as a series of incidents, rather than a flowing narrative. The only character that really registers is Becky herself - but what a character she is! Thanks mostly to its production values, the movie is very enjoyable, if not completely satisfying. Hopefully watching it will inspire more people to read the sprawling yet immensely entertaining book.

A lot of people tend to assume GONE WITH THE WIND or THE WIZARD OF OZ were the first color movies. Firstly, color film had been experimented with since the silent era, with a handful of features being made wholly in the old two-strip Technicolor process during the 1920s. Secondly, GONE WITH THE WIND and THE WIZARD OF OZ were merely early examples of the three-strip Technicolor process, but certainly not the first-- that honor goes to 1935's BECKY SHARP and to be honest, that's about all the honor the movie merits.

BECKY SHARP is an adaptation of the novel VANITY FAIR and while I have never read the book, this appears to be an extremely truncated retelling, jumping from plot point to plot point with little in the way of interesting characters to keep the viewer invested. Becky cons men into giving her money, behaves badly, spends too much, needs more money, cons men into giving her money, behaves badly, ad nauseum. There's little sense of character development there for any of the players involved, making the movie tiresome.

I love Miriam Hopkins, but I am shocked that anyone thinks this is her best performance: compared to her work in Rouben Mamoulian's DR. JEKYLL AND MR HYDE or in the haunting THE STORY OF TEMPLE DRAKE or in anything she did for Lubitsch, this is hammy, hammy work. Not that it isn't without its charms and humor (I love the scene where she turns on the waterworks to soften up her husband's hard-nosed spinster aunt), but Hopkins gets quite shrill at points, making her exhausting to watch.

Really, the saving grace is the Technicolor. The costumes and sets are quite gorgeous, which might explain the constant stagey-ness of the cinematography. Mamoulian's films of the early 1930s tended to be far more cinematic than their counterparts, less afraid of experimenting with camera movement and sound, but here, the blocking of the actors and the placement of the camera are very theatrical and stuffy, likely to show off the color of the sets. That might have been enough to astound an audience in 1935, but color in and of itself is less likely to impress anyone, even a classic film fan, these days.

Classic film nerds like me are really the only ones who will get anything out of BECKY SHARP. It's historically important and not without good moments, but it's hardly of the storytelling stature of the far better three-strip Technicolor movies which would follow it in the years to come.