everything you have heard about this movie is true.

A Brilliant Conflict

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

If you've read my reviews under my username, you probably realized I'm currently reviewing the "Our Gang" shorts in chronological order as well as some feature films that have at least one of its members the same way when it comes between whatever OG shorts were released at the time. Actually, this one came about a year after the eps I'm currently reviewing but anyway, this one has Dickie Moore as a young boy who experiences a tragedy and only the girl who lives next door-played by Virginia Wiedler-manages to get him through it. Unfortunately, he's forced to move and it's a while before they communicate again. So years later, Moore's character becomes Gary Cooper and Ms. Wiedler becomes Ann Harding though neither know it yet. Oh, and Ms. Harding's character is married by this time. Now up to this point, I was willing to go with the story but when the jealous husband is killed by Cooper-in self defense-who then gets a life sentence, suddenly he and Ms. Harding are communicating with each other in dreams. And it takes place for so many years that we're then just treated to only them and no one else for most of the rest of the movie. I'm sorry but I just couldn't take that part as something to believe in and I found myself anxious for the movie to quickly end when those dreams were depicted. Good thing this was only about 90 minutes. I'm at least glad to have finally seen this after reading about it a little. And I was really impressed by Dickie Moore's performance. So on that note, Peter Ibbetson is worth a look. P.S. Moore would eventually get to share a scene with Cooper when they both appeared in Sergeant York.

Where does love begin and where does it end? Do our dreams keep us connected with the person we truly loved no matter where they are, even if they are deceased? A few films in Hollywood history have asked this profound question, the most famous of which is 1980's "Somewhere in Time" in which lovers Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour played time travel with each other in order to be together. In "Peter Ibettson", Gary Cooper and Ann Harding are childhood sweethearts who are somehow able to have similar dreams that ultimately are the method in which they are able to be together when circumstances tear them apart.Cooper seems like a strange choice for this type of role, being too all-American for this dashing European character born in France and raised in England. It takes a while to accept him in this part, more obviously made for actors like Fredric March or Ronald Colman. Ann Harding, a popular leading lady barely remembered today (except by obsessive classic movie fans such as me), resembles the more famous Irene Dunne; In fact, the two of them were often cast in similar parts in the early 1930's when they were under contract to RKO. The only difference is that Dunne was able to show off her talent for comedy and was a good singer for operettas, while Harding was primarily a dramatic actress. Harding did have some comical skills she gets to show here. The roles of the characters as children are played by the talented Dickie Moore and Virginia Wiedler. Douglas Dumbrille, usually cast as the imperious heavy, is good as Moore's serious uncle, but unlike Basil Rathbone in the same year's "David Copperfield", his similar character actually means well, if not totally sympathetic. The actual villain is John Halliday as Harding's count husband whose actions are understandable considering the time, setting and circumstances. It is more the outcome of his actions than the things he does which bring on the tragedy (and fantasy) of the romantic situation. Donald Meek is also memorable as Cooper's blind employer who sees the world through a different light that instills him with much wisdom.

I'm glad that Peter Ibbetson has been done as an opera by Deems Taylor because that is the medium that this strange story would most likely be revived. It's a sad and romantic tale that they wrote back in Victorian days, but would hardly make it today.Originally a novel by George DuMaurier, Peter Ibbetson became a play on Broadway that was written by John N. Raphaelson and starred John and Lionel Barrymore on Broadway during the 1917 season. The notion that people in love separated by man could be united and live a life in dreams would have found great popularity in that year with so many lovers and married folks separated by war.Two children played by Dickie Moore and Virginia Weidler grow up to be Gary Cooper and Ann Harding. Moore and Weidler are best friends and neighbors in Paris, a pair of English expatriate families. When Moore's mother dies, his uncle Douglass Dumbrille comes to Paris to take him back to Great Britain to raise and the children are separated.Fast forward many years later and Ann Harding is now the Duchess of Towers and her husband John Halliday the Duke hires a promising young architect to do some major renovations on the estate and its Gary Cooper. At some point Harding and Cooper realize who they are and the memories of a bygone carefree childhood cause them to fall in love. When Halliday finds them in a compromising position, he tries to shoot Cooper who flings a chair at him and kills him.If all things were equal Cooper at most should have been charged with manslaughter. But Halliday being a Duke gains him celebrity status and Cooper apparently without a good attorney gets sentenced to life imprisonment. But as they are separated now, Harding and Cooper connect in their dreams each night and live an incredible life which of course means they never grow old.For today's audience Peter Ibbetson is a bit hard to swallow, but the players are so charming and sincere you actually let your cynicism fall away. The story is remarkably similar to the operetta Maytime and no wonder Deems Taylor saw it as suitable grand opera material. In fact Peter Ibbetson's one Academy Award nomination was for its romantic musical score.As good as Cooper and Harding are, I think in retrospect the film belongs to Dickie Moore and Virginia Weidler. As the children Mimsie and Gogo, the film really belongs to them, you remember their performances throughout the movie as you watch their grownup counterparts.Oddly enough even with a French and later English setting, Peter Ibbetson's cast is mostly American. No one in fact is more American than Gary Cooper, but few also are have as romantic persona and a face the movie camera loved as it did few others. For that reason and others Peter Ibbetson holds up well even in today's far more realistic and cynical age.

Sometimes you watch a film which is so good that you wonder why it isn't better known. Peter Ibbetson is such a film. It takes a concept which is highly original but undoubtedly 'out there' and makes you believe in it for just under an hour and a half. It also manages to be a truly moving love story whose basic concept,a man and a woman who are apart for most of their lives meet in their dreams,and it's message,that love does indeed conquer all, should warm the hearts {and shed the tears}of die hard romantics everywhere.It's a bit stilted as many 30s films are,especially at first,but Charles Lang's expressionistic photography immediately creates a fairy tale feeling. The growing love between the young boy and girl is extremely touching. When they meet again as adults,it seems like the film is going to settle down into being a conventional love triangle tale {she's married}. Then the film suddenly changes,and although separated the two lovers carry out their relationship in their dreams. The film is quite subtle is depicting the dream world,although there are wonderful touches,such as the fairy tale castle that she creates with her imagination,only for it to crumble when he fails to believe in it. As for the ending,well,you would have to be very strong not to shed a tear. Like much of the film,it's almost underplayed,and is all the more moving for not being over the top.Gary Cooper shows once again what a great actor he was in his early days {as in A Farewell To Arms},really making us feel his character's pain and joy,although Ann Harding is perhaps a bit too earthy for her role. Director Henry Hathaway was generally a solid craftsman,but here he shows real engagement in his story.A great deal of attention is paid to set design,look at the way for instance the pair are often separated by bars of some sort in the 'real'world. Also notable is the music score by Ernest Toch,suitably romantic,but quite low key and sparse-Max Steiner would have plastered the film with music,but would it have really been as effective?Peter Ibbetson is a wonderful movie, and deserves to be ranked with some of the more better known fantasy romances of Hollywood's Golden Age. I'd actually like to see a remake of this,as it's such an amazing idea. But before that let's have a DVD release,please!