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saint joan quick review
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quick movie review

There was an endearing small-town common sense about Jean Seberg that stood up to the powerful attentions of several discoverers and that, on occasion, brought a deliberate naturalism to good films. Although at the time she was treated contemptuously by the critics, her Saint Joan (57, Otto Preminger) is a shrewd and touching fusion of provincial America, rural France, and Shaw's notion of a fustian saint picking logic with kings and bishops. She was chosen for that film, by Preminger, after an exhaustive search; even cropped and in armour she looked pretty and robust, and managed through her very disavowal of spirituality to bring odd conviction to the claims that she had heard voices.

This though is a film that should have worked better than it did. Leaving aside Seberg, it was based (loosely) on George Bernard Shaw's play, no less than Graham Greene was responsible for the script and Preminger was in his prime. But it just doesn't work, not now and certainly not when it was made for few parted with their cash to go and view it.

It's a fascinating flop and part of the reason it was box office poison is, to my mind, the miscasting. I know critics attacked Seberg but I think she is good and for a 17 year old does well in holding the film together. What's more, she was the same age as Saint Joan - not many productions can say the same. I think it's an important point as older actresses can't capture the youthfulness of God's Warrior and, consequently, miss much of the point of the life of Joan.

No, it's not Jean but the other portrayls. Greene himself may have thought Seberg wasn't up tot he task but I think he was wrong. It's the others. Richard Widmark as the Dauphin is just daft. He's pure Hollywood; I'm expecting John Wayne to pop from around his shoulder at one point to deal with the English in a way only John Wayne could. And John Gielgud gives one of those disinterested performances he tended to do when he was disinterested in a part.

It's still a fascinating watch though mainly for its flaws.

The Dvd packaging is great as it's a shot of Jean Seberg and anything devoted to a face of star quality is well worth viewing.