Devotion (1946)

A highly fictionalized account of the Bronte sisters, Emily (Ida Lupino) and Charlotte (Olivia De Havilland), who wrote two of the greatest novels of the 19th century, WUTHERING HEIGHTS and JANE EYRE. As conceived by the three writers and director Curtis Bernhardt, the film attempts to turn the lives of the Brontes, which include the poetess sister Anne (Nancy Coleman) and painter brother Bramwell (Arthur Kennedy), into something resembling their respective novels. As a result, it ends up as a rather modestly involving costume melodrama about two sisters and the man (Paul Henreid) who comes between them. There's nothing in it indicating the genuine passion the Brontes had for their art, for their writing. It seems almost secondary to the love triangle. It's decently acted and the last scene between Lupino and De Havilland is beautifully played out. But the film's acting honors go to Kennedy as the dissolute and dissipated alcoholic brother. There's an exquisite underscore by Erich Wolfgang Korngold that may well be his greatest film score. With Sydney Greenstreet in the small but showy part of William Makepeace Thackery, Dame May Whitty, Ethel Griffies, Victor Francen and in his final film role, Montagu Love as the Bronte father. The film was completed in early 1943 but not released until 1946 by which time Love had been deceased for almost three years.