Best movie ever!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

A lengthy(138 min.) costume drama, based upon the popular very lengthy novel of the same name. Most of the story is set during the early reign of Charles II of England. However, the very brief beginning is set in 1644, during the English Civil War between the Royalists and Parliamentarians. During this earlier time, a coach containing Loyalists is being chased by Parliamentarians. The coach stops long enough to deposit an infant girl on a cottage step. A little later, the horsemen catch the coach and kill all those inside.Abruptly, the screenplay moves forward to when this girl is 16 years old, and itching to escape the confines of her life as a farmer's daughter. Perhaps it's that royal blood that she presumably was born with. In any case, she thinks she's pretty enough to turn the heads of many a young, as well as old, gentleman. Against everyone's advice, she sets off by herself for London, where she meets two gentlemen she got acquainted with in the village tavern. She decides she very much likes one of them: Bruce Carlton. The two are home from a voyage, looking for a charter to serve as privateers. Clearly, Bruce is not yet ready to tie himself down with a wife and children. He prefers an adventurous life to that of court intrigue. Nonetheless, Amber persists at trying to throw herself at him. Bruce gets his permission from the King and goes off on another voyage, leaving Amber with some money for living expenses. But she loses most of it from a pair of swindlers. She's thrown into prison as a debtor , and escapes, thanks to the influence of a highwayman: Black Jack, who uses her to lure fops into an alley, where they are robbed. Eventually, Black Jack is killed in one of these heists. Amber has a child fathered by Bruce, and then proceeds to form romantic relationships with several men. She nurses Bruce back to health when he comes down with plague and defends him against a thieving woman, while sick. He then has to fight a rapier duel over her. Given Bruce's indifference, she marries an elderly earl, as a kept woman, becoming a countess. He dies by fowl play in the great London fire, which consumes his mansion. Amber next attracts the attention of King Charles, becoming his mistress. Unfortunately, Bruce again arrives, this time from a plantation in Virginia. He has a wife this time, and Amber tries to tarnish her reputation. But it backfires, and the King dismisses her as his mistress, concluding that she cared more for Bruce than for him. She is opposed to Bruce's pleading that he take Bruce Jr. back with him to Virginia. However, Bruce Jr. says he wants to experience the adventure of the New World, so she gives him up. She has lost those she loves most, as well as her position with Charles. She's still a countess, but has no clue what to do with the rest of her life.Linda Darnell is OK in the title role. The various featured men are good in their roles, except that Cornel Wilde, as Bruce, should have been more animated and likable. Too bad Errol Flynn couldn't have his part. Vincent Price had played Charles II in "Hudson's Bay", and was the original choice for this role here. But, George Sanders did a good job.Although Amber was infatuated with Bruce, the opposite didn't seem to be true. Unfortunately, their preferred lifestyles weren't very compatible. Bruce wanted an adventurous life, and Amber wanted a courtly life. In his new life as a Virginia planter, he definitely needed a wife, and preferably, a growing boy such as Bruce Jr, Amber had already shown she wasn't interested in a rural life, especially in farming. Much of the film appears to have been shot in semi-darkness, or occasionally, fog. At this time, shooting in color required strong lights for indoor shots. Or, perhaps they wanted a more realistic lighting. Also, the copy I saw wasn't a vibrant Technicolor.

Overlong, overwrought romantic epic that lacks chemistry between the leads. Linda Darnell is passable as Amber -- if not stunningly talented, then at least gifted with screen presence. But Cornell Wilde is as flat as a wet blanket, dousing the fire out of every scene where it might possibly have ignited. Most errors in movies of this type can be overlooked if the attraction between the two lovers is palpable. Sadly, there is no indication that Wilde's Carlton even likes Amber, let alone finds her alluring. Production code aside, there were plenty of movies of this period that portrayed believable epic love, and this isn't one of them.The real highlight here is George Sanders as the licentious Charles II, a part he was born to play. I have no doubt that Vincent Price, considered for the role, could have done well (he gave the best performance of his career in another Preminger movie, "Laura"), but Sanders brings so much dripping wit and irony to everything he does that he makes every scene he's in come alive. He's not in it much, however.The production itself is pretty good, some great costumes and sets. The swordfighting scene (with thankfully little dialogue) was excellent and far too short. The story itself is a little choppy. The first scene was a non-sequitur, promising a potentially interesting plot device that never came. And the ending was a complete disaster - abrupt, unresolved, unbalanced, and worst of all, unsatisfying. Overall, the movie leaves a sour taste in the mouth, as if the decadence that was portrayed somehow got hold of the people making it and caused them to focus more on the image than on the story.

Back in the days when the Roman Catholic censorship body, the Legion of Decency, had an unwarranted share of influence over the major Hollywood studios and their product, Darryl F. Zanuck, head of production at 20th-Century Fox, found himself embroiled in plenty of hot water with the L. of D. militia over his plans to film Kathleen Winsor's wildly popular succes du scandale "Forever Amber." We can be grateful he braved the fulminations of the clerics and their cohorts and lavished class "A" production values on this entertaining spectacle. Of course the more salacious aspects of Miss Winsor's story are toned down and softened, but there's a rather bitterly astringent tone to the proceedings, nevertheless.The cast performs ably under the legendarily tyrranical Otto Preminger, whose direction of some sequences does seem a bit perfunctory. Linda Darnell is gorgeously gowned and lovingly photographed in three-strip Technicolor by Leon Shamroy, at his professional best. (I will agree that some scenes, especially at the beginning, seem a bit underlit, possibly due to an inferior VHS video transfer...I have never seen this on a big screen.) Miss Darnell holds her own against the likes of George Sanders, giving one of his wittiest performances as King Charles II, and her line readings, spoken in that delicious speaking voice of hers, ring true for the most part. The always reliable Richard Haydn, as the loathsome Earl of Radcliffe, convinces us that his grisly fate is well-deserved. And even the usually laconic Cornel Wilde convinces as a suitable object of Amber's steadfastly unrequited passion.Best of all David Raksin's score achieves near-operatic grandeur, lending a sensual sweep that underscores one of Twentieth's really memorable costumers. Alfred Newman, head of Twentieth's music department, masterfully conducted Raksin's music, back in the days when the major studios employed full-time orchestras of musicians whose talents rivalled the players of the best symphony orchestras of the day and, perhaps, even now. Of course the video's audio track doesn't do the musical score the justice it deserves and it may be that in the late Forties when this was made, only the Warner Brothers studio sound technicians achieved full sonority on the optical tracks on which were recorded the scores of Korngold and Steiner and the other masters who worked at that rival studio.

"You've done very well for yourself, Amber."With this line, Cornell Wilde's character shows himself a master of understatement. It is delivered coldly, with neither criticism nor respect.FOREVER AMBER is the portrait of a peasant girl who refused to be destroyed by her poverty and the hopeless prospects awaiting her. She used her sexuality and her brains to become the King's consort.This film presents a vivid portrait of life in England before the Cromwellian revolution. It was an amoral, extremely cynical, heartlessly cruel society.Linda Darnell's performance is a tour de force. She manages to play the strumpet, while letting the audience see her strength of character shining through all the while. Her love for the fickle Bruce Carlton/Cornell Wilde is too deep for him to ever understand.One of the most haunting episodes in classic films is the depiction of London in the grip of the Black Plague. Amber risks her life by staying at Bruce's side through his delirium and personally performing the surgery that saves him.Amber's tragedy is one that every woman who has ever had to fight for herself in this world can recognize. The movie is far more than a period soap opera. In fact, with David Raksin's incredible orchestral score, the production could have provided the framework for the composition of a real opera.... La Boheme, move over!