Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Ishallwearpurple The Constant Nymph (1943) Joan Fontaine, Charles Boyer, Alexis Smith. O.M.G! When I was a teeny bopper in 1943 when this came to our neighborhood theater, I was entranced. A girl only a bit older than me in love with an older dreamy guy - and he loves her back. O.M.G! But , but! I watched the DVR'd copy last night and I was soooo disappointed. Fontaine is drippy. It is one of Boyers worst films. Smith comes out with her dignity in tact. And, I was underwhelmed by the music. I've longed to see this again all these years, but now wish it was still among the 'lost.' "Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it." 5/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035751/

TimesSquareAngel TCM recently managed to clear the rights of this film from the literary executors of Basil Dean (who coauthored the play version) and Margaret Kennedy (who authored the novel and play adaptation). The television premiere was on TCM on September 28, 2011. The original 1924 novel has been reprinted in paperback but I have not read it yet.It seems that the 1943 Hollywood adaptation cleans most of the sex out of the story which was dealt with in the novel. Also the book focuses on the entire Sanger family while the film (and play) focuses on the central triangle of Tessa, Lewis Dodd and Florence. I think that Boyer and Fontaine are somewhat miscast as Tessa and Dodd though both perform excellently. It seems that in the novel the pair become lovers though Tessa is underage and they actually do escape together to Brussels. Also, the sister Toni Sanger already has had a sexual affair with Birnbaum, played in the movie by Peter Lorre as Fritz Bercovy. In the film both affairs remain chaste - at least until Toni Sanger is safely married to the Birnbaum/Bercovy character.In the film, the pedophilia issue is dodged by having Dodd and Tessa realize and acknowledge they are lovers/soul mates without any form of consummation - even kissing. Their love is idealized and unrealizable on this earth. One love scene that was probably played for real in the book or play is done as a "dream vision" by Tessa while she listen's to Dodd's symphony on the radio.Fontaine is too old but shows a remarkable lack of vanity - wearing no makeup and using an awkward, hyperactive physicality to suggest an adolescent girl. Boyer comes off as too much the mature European roué - Robert Donat, Errol Flynn and Leslie Howard were all considered for the part. Not enough is made of Lewis' social nonconformity - in the book he is also the son of wealth who repudiates his class and its values. Alexis Smith as Florence, the unhappy excluded wife comes off best in some ways - her character has a genuine conflict going on and is proactive. Smith as another poster mentioned is simultaneously hateful, understandable and pitiful and she fights for a relationship that is essentially doomed. Florence's attraction to bohemian artistic types is in conflict with her basic inability to sympathize with their lifestyles and values. This conflict is truthfully captured by Smith and Goulding.The studio sets in the Austrian Tyrol scenes look like a mix of Kentucky farm and English moors and are not convincing. There is a genuine sophistication here but without the characters taking that final fatal step into the forbidden, some of the guts of the story is lost. The previous two adaptation of the book - a 1928 silent with Ivor Novello and Mabel Poulton (preserved by the BFI) and an unavailable or lost 1934 remake with Victoria Hopper and Brian Aherne evidently hewed closer to the novel.

FERNANDO SILVA Joan Fontaine has became one of my very favorite actresses, just like her sister Olivia de Havilland, after seeing her in such Classics as "Rebecca", "Suspicion", "Jane Eyre" and that masterpiece, "Letter from an Unknown Woman". That mesmerizing constantly-frightened-insecure-frail look of hers has totally bewitched me; her classic features surrounded by an ethereal aura; her distinction and class, even in waif-like roles like the one she plays here and in "Letter…".This film, just as "Letter from an Unknown Woman" is about Love, sometimes unrequited but always "intense". Young Tessa Sanger (Joan Fontaine) is deeply in love with much elder composer Lewis Dodd (Charles Boyer), who hasn't been able to succeed as musician. Tessa's father (another musician) played by Montagu Love, says that Lewis will have to love and suffer because of it, to attain an achievement as a composer.The wondrous music by masterful German composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold is a marvel, pure poetry, which sets the perfect mood for this melancholic Love Story; it was really a privilege for Warner Brothers Pictures to have had the fortune of counting him as one of the members of its staff; Korngold's music is an awesome contribution to the Motion Pictures.As I said before Joan Fontaine's perfect as the young Tessa. She was something like 26 years old when this movie was filmed and she portrays convincingly and believably the love-stricken teenager. Boyer is good as the intense composer and plays sensitively his scenes with Fontaine. Kudos too for Alexis Smith, who plays Florence, Tessa's elder cousin with great skill and sentiment.Others in the magnificent cast are Charles Coburn as Tessa's lovable uncle, Brenda Marshall as Tessa's sister, Dame May Witty as a Dowager British Aristocrat, Peter Lorre as a friend of the Sanger family, Eduardo Ciannelli as Roberto, a faithful servant of the Sanger family, Jean Muir, etc.Again, it's a shame that this wonderful, utterly moving film is out of circulation due to legal issues, if they didn't exist it should belong to TCM's Library (just like "Letty Lynton").

thegreggor-1 This film is one of the hardest to find great films of its day. Joan Fontaine considers it to be one of her two best performances, the other being her work in Letter From An Unknown Woman. Both films share an abundance of similarities. In each, she devotes her life to her love of a musician. Music is as significant and intrinsic to the films as any major character. In addition, the two films both allow Fontaine the dramatic luxury of playing her characters as children. She pulls this off more successfully than any other actress I have seen. In fact, my favorite parts of both films were the early scenes in which she was playing her characters at their most youthful. The Constant Nymph offers some fascinatingly complex characterizations, including Alexis Smith's Florence, whom we hate and feel sorry for at the same time (for stealing away Charles Boyer from Joan Fontaine). This is a very special film with some truly beautiful music. Catch it if you can!