So Well Remembered

a film by Edward Dmytryk
based on a novel by James Hilton

An idealistic goodie George (John Mills) falls in love with Olivia (Martha Scott) who, surprise surprise, turns out to be a baddie. Bad daughter, bad mother, bad woman in general — fair play to her, in theory. The problem is, she sucks at being bad. Asking for hot milk instead of tea, what’s that? Annie (Beatrice Varley) saw through her in a trice. Scott and Richard Carlson stick out like two sore thumbs among the mostly British cast, the best of whom is Trevor Howard as George’s alcoholic doctor friend.

A flawed but engaging and well-crafted drama, So Well Remembered — oh, the irony! — was pretty much and inexplicably forgotten. I still don’t understand how come that the film reel disappeared after its first screening in 1947 to be unearthed in 2004 somewhere in Tennessee. With a budget of $1.5 million, it was quite expensive product at the time to have just one copy, right?

This film closed the James Hilton cycle by Asociación de Cine Vértigo.