Ilana and Arwen sit down to review “Désirée”, a 1954 American historical romance film directed by Henry Koster, starring Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons and Michael Rennie.
How historically correct is this movie? What about the costuming, the setting, the locations? Can the casting get any better than this? What about the book by Annemarie Selinko? And how does this film from 1954 compare with the new “Napoleon” movie from 2023? Watch our review for our unfiltered opinion!
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"Désirée is a 1954 American historical romance film directed by Henry Koster and produced by Julian Blaustein from a screenplay by Daniel Taradash, based on the best-selling novel Désirée by Annemarie Selinko. The music score was by Alex North and the cinematography by Milton R. Krasner.

It stars Marlon Brando as Napoleon Bonaparte and Jean Simmons as Désirée Clary. It also stars Merle Oberon and Michael Rennie with Cameron Mitchell, Elizabeth Sellars, Charlotte Austin, Cathleen Nesbitt, Carolyn Jones and Evelyn Varden.

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Art Direction (color) (Lyle R. Wheeler, Leland Fuller, Walter M. Scott, Paul S. Fox) and Best Costume Design (René Hubert and Charles LeMaire)."
-- Wikipedia

Chapters:
0:00 Film: "Désirée" 1954
This is not the Napoleon 2023 movie
Watch our review of that here:    • Movie, Docudrama or Cinematic Postcar...  
1:30 Costuming: The French Revolution and the Regency
2:55 The Coronation Scene
4:40 The men's uniforms
6:20 Not filmed on location
7:15 The soaked scene (Marlon Brando)
9:00 Let's talk about Marlon Brando!
10:15 Désirée Clary - real historical figure
11:20 Different storytelling about Napoleon
12:10 The Désirée/Napoleon Romance
14:35 The Désirée/Bernadotte Romance
15:30 The novel by Annemarie Selinko
16:25 A film needs more than the facts
17:30 Michael Rennie as Bernadotte
18:20 Brando shows a live Napoleon in this film
19:00 The garden scene and an indecent proposal
20:30 Soldiers versus the civilized ladies
21:30 Bernadotte is tall!
Michael Rennie as Peter in "The Robe":    • A harsh cure for toxic masculinity? A...  
22:10 The golden trio of actors and Merle Oberon
23:00 Désirée and Joséphine
Find the Dutch radio play, "Désirée" here: https://archive.org/details/Desiree_723 (in Dutch)
24:10 The film skipped Joséphine's death
25:20 Désirée and Napoleon's character
27:45 The female-space settings
30:00 Désirée, politics and Napoleon and Bernadotte
32:00 More films about the Napoleonic era?
35:20 Napoleon's power (and the EU?)
37:15 What Napoleon did for Europe
39:30 Cinemascope in 1954
41:00 Dutch King Louis (Napoleon) 1806-1810
43:13 Annemarie Selinko wrote a historically correct drama
Mention: "War and Peace"
46:10 Mention: "Becket" the play
47:40 The casting of Napoleon
50:00 Désirée's world
50:50 "Désirée" 1954 versus "Napoleon" 2023
52:20 Kingdom of Sweden and Bernadotte
Desideria, Queen of Sweden and Norway
53:50 Désirée and Napoleon in cold countries
55:30 Beginning and End of the movie
56:50 Exposition
58:10 Good book, good film, good cast

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Music: Magnetic Rag by Scott Joplin
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