Medievalists might enjoy this - it's reasonably factual.

Joan of Arc was one of those individuals who quite literally changed the world. Had this insignificant little girl from an obscure Germanic part of France not believed that God was speaking to her and more importantly that she convinced Charles Valois and his friends that God wanted him to be king rather than a six year old English boy (who was the grandson of the previous French king), Europe and then the world would have ended up being very different.

Had she known that Charles, one of several pretenders to the French throne whom she helped become king was a duplicitous, homicidal tyrant she definitely would not have bothered. But that's another story........ this review is about very watchable if slightly flat technicolour extravaganza.

Why flat?

If a 14 year old girl were these days to walk into the Elysee palace or the White House and tell the president that God has commanded him to invade Russia, she would be quietly taken away to a dark room so it's difficult for our modern minds to understand how such a 'crazy' belief was so acceptable as being normal back then. Most people believed with the same absolute certainty of knowing that the sun will rise each morning that everything that happens happens because of God. To them and to Joan, God was as real to them as the food they ate or the air they breathed. It would therefore be impossible for any film to portray such a world whilst still being entertaining for a 'modern' audience but playwright Maxwell Anderson and the RKO team (including the great Victor Fleming) manage to create a reasonable compromise between our world and that of the 15th century.

Ingrid Bergman, even though double the age of the real Joan, is believable as a real person. She had wanted to play this role for years and her enthusiasm and commitment to being the innocent, naive inspiration for revolution really comes across. Although there are some spectacular '1950s Hollywood style' battles, her own performance is purposely not dynamic, it's restrained and thoughtful which makes you think there's a lot more we need to know about her. This enigmatic and somewhat frustrating persona does however create a distance in empathy between her and us. Other than 'modernising' the story, which is unacceptable, anything else would be almost impossible.

"Joan of Arc" is a film with a much larger budget and more prestigious cast than you'd expect from a movie released by RKO. After all, RKO was clearly a second-tier studio whose output was far lower budgeted than most films from MGM, Twentieth Centure-Fox and Warner Brothers. But here, the studio released a prestige film...with vivid color, a LOT of familiar actors and a plot involving one of the great women of the late Middle Ages. Unfortunately, the public did NOT respond well to this and the film actually lost money. How?

Ingrid Bergman plays the title character and the story consists of her life from her middle teens to her execution at age 19. This is a SERIOUS problem, as when the film began she was about 15-16...and looked like the 33 years she actually was.

The other main problem with the film is that the filmmakers were too reverential towards the character...with dirge-like music and a pace slower than a snail! Telling it faster and with perhaps more behind the scenes intrigues would have helped. Regardless, I just kept wanting the film to speed up...particularly at the end when you KNOW what's going to happen and it takes too long to get there. Well made and nice looking...but also a film that might bore you as well.

By the way, although it didn't impact my viewing, the film was a pet project of Ingrid Bergman but she also was responsible for helping to tank the film. Negative publicity about her affair with a married man became public at about the time the film was released. This very unsaint-like behavior surely must have negatively impacted the box office numbers.

Of all the wonderful Ingrid Bergman dramas, I don't understand why Joan of Arc was one of the famous ones. Sure, it's always nice to see her sparkling blue eyes in Technicolor, but the script was corny and the production almost felt like it was a spoof. Remember how silly Danny Kaye looked in his suit of armor in The Court Jester? I couldn't shake the image from my head when Ingrid put on her own oversized armor. A larger than life actress in her own right, I'm not sure it was really her fault that Joan of Arc was so lousy. Perhaps no one could have saved this spectacle.

It is notable for debuting José Ferrer to the screen public, although it's hardly a memorable performance. Just wait two years and catch him in his signature Cyrano de Bergerac. You'll also see many, many familiar faces in the supporting cast: Charles Bickford, Gene Lockhart, Ward Bond, Roman Bohnen, Selena Royle, Ray Teal, Robert Barrat, Jimmy Lydon, Richard Ney, and George Coulouris. If you're a die-hard old movie buff, you'll want to put this classic on your list. But it won't really give you a great impression of Ingrid Bergman. Try her out in the lesser known drama The Visit for one of her career-best performances.