Very Cool!!!

Simply Perfect

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Did you people see the same film I saw?

She has been remembered in history as the peasant girl who was accused of heresy for hearing voices telling her to drive the English out of France, during part of a time in what would be remembered as the Hundred Years' War. But to a lesser extent, she would be remembered for eventually having her name cleared and be made a saint in 1920.It is the story which began in 1456, 25 years after the trial of Joan of Arc with the aging King Charles VII (Richard Widmark) searching around the palace for his subjects, before the ghost of Joan (Jean Seberg) appears in front of him. He would recall how she entered his life as a 17-year-old peasant girl arriving at the palace when he was still a Dauphin in Chinon but still being constantly bullied by others, telling him she had heard the voices of Saints Catherine and Margaret who told her to lead the army against the English at Orleans. But before Joan found her way to the palace in a soldier's armour, she managed to convince the local squire Captain Robert de Baudricourt (Archie Duncan), who initially had his doubts over Joan, to let her lead an army.Among those who helped out in Joan's quest is Jean de Dunios, Bastard of Orleans (Richard Todd), or whom she always calls him Jack. It turns out despite after Charles had been crowned king, what Joan has done has earned her enemies in high places, even as she became popular with the masses, grew in confidence and having apparent supernatural powers. Jack would come to be one of the very few who believed in Joan. Joan wants Charles to retake Paris from the English but she was stopped by the newly-crowned king himself and the archbishop (Finlay Currie) who threatened her that she would be disowned by the church, which she has always put her faith in for her quests, if she did so. Her decision to still march on to Paris would be paid with a heavy price when she would be eventually captured by the English and be tried.There are times when it feels like the story has been disjointed as the film progresses, as what happened in the opening scene shows up in the epilogue of the original version of the 1923 play written by George Bernard Shaw which acted as the base for the film itself. As for those who are not familiar with the story of Joan of Arc, it can look confusing with no background information showing on the screen at the pivotal moments in the life of Joan, leading up to the trial itself.When it comes to what the film might had implied in terms of what was to blame for Joan's final fate before she was absolved of her original 'crime' it is still up to the viewer to decide whether it is what the film implies or not, but without any form of prenotion, that is if they have some kind of prior knowledge.Overall, it is a film to help especially those who are not aware of the story of Joan of Arc and what led her to do what she did despite her background and what would to be of her final fate before being made a saint, despite the confusing elements in the film itself in terms of how it is presented.

This movie is a should-be classic. It's not perfect, certainly. The pacing, while perfect for the stage, is in movie form slow as a tortoise with arthritic knees. Jean Seberg is misdirected to be too sweet and too gentle. She fully shows enough acting talent, skill, and craft to convincingly play the clever, passionate, and confident Joan, but, unfortunately, the director missed the point of the character. George Bernard Shaw is my favorite playwright. In no other play has his dialog been more sharp, nor the lines more musical. However, processing this film requires that you look at it as a lawyer. This movie is a case, and the viewer is the judge. That is how this picture is to be enjoyed. 7/10.

The Joan of Arc story is always a hard one to deal with, especially for skeptics. Did she really hear voices, divinely inspired, that put the burden of liberating France on her 17 year old shoulders? Or should she have been locked in a loony bin? I'm not really sure that any other culture than the French ought to be telling her story, inevitably the interpretation will fall short of the mark. It falls short here because we have two diametrically opposed viewpoints working on the treatment.The key to this film is that it is adapted from a play by George Bernard Shaw by Graham Greene. So we have the writing of a Fabian Socialist being interpreted by one very Catholic writer. I think there's a great deal more Greene than Shaw.Shaw gets his innings here, but I think Graham Greene dominates the film. If he had lived I'm sure Shaw would not have approved.Charles VIII in history or as portrayed by Richard Widmark here or Jose Ferrer in the Ingrid Bergman film about Joan of Arc, is not the noblest of monarchs. If you are a good Catholic, what he did was going against the will of the Deity. Otherwise though what he tries to do in consolidating his gains makes perfect good sense.It's funny that I did a review of Olivier's Henry V which viewed from the English point of view which shows how the French got in the situation they were in. What happens afterwards is that Henry V dies quite suddenly like Alexander the Great and England with an infant monarch and fifty year plus struggle for power implodes internally.Before he died however Charles VII disowned his son the Dauphin and blessed the marriage of Henry V to his daughter Katherine with the provision that Henry succeed Charles VII as King. The French for good reason do not list the English Henry as one of their kings.Enter Joan of Arc whose visions inspire an army and a nation. As played by Jean Seberg she's in the right age group to be sure. But I think Ingrid Bergman being the far more skilled professional carries it off better in her film. Ditto for Jose Ferrer instead of Richard Widmark. The best acted parts in this film are Anton Walbrook as Cauchon the Bishop who presided over the trial and the clever and serpentine John Gielgud as the Earl of Warwick.Maybe if Otto Preminger had chosen to film pure Shaw, Saint Joan would have been better received.

This is an under-rated version of the story of the farm girl who fought the British and helped kick them out of France. Seberg is nowhere near as bad in this movie as reputation would suggest (and looks great with a way cool cropped hair-do), and there are good performances from Geilgud, Richard Widmark, and Richard Todd. It does have to be said, though, that this is not a movie for action-lovers - the centrepiece of Joan leading the troops in the liberation of Orleans, for example, is replaced by a fade-to-black! The movie is also quite stagey and it is stylistically easy to think it was made at least ten years earlier than it's 1957 release date. The movie makes a nice change if you are fed up with the Ingrid Bergman version, though.