1943 – Joan Fontaine
The Constant Nymph
I’m sorry, but I didn’t particularly care for Fontaine in this film. It dealt with a few things that generally bother me, and sometimes leave me with an icky feeling. It was about a young country bumpkin of a girl named Tessa Sanger, who is around sixteen years old. She is desperately in love with an older man who is a composer. When he marries the girl’s relative, she and her sister go under the guardianship of his new father-in-law and are sent off to finishing school. But her love for the man is so intense and needy that she unwittingly gets his feelings to change from those of a dear family friend, to a decidedly romantic nature.
First of all, Fontaine was too old for the part, and while they did their best to make her appear young and bubbly, there were times when her real age of around twenty-six became very obvious. Second, assuming she was a teenager, here we have Charles Boyer falling in love with an underage girl… again. And finally, even if the character was a more appropriate age, her love was desperate and needy, even to the point of her dying of a broken heart because she could not have him. You could tell right from Fontaine’s first appearance on the screen that her love for Lewis was unhealthy, even hungry. Her feelings went beyond simple love or desire, and bordered on absolute need. It was unnerving to watch in a teenage character.
But I think I was supposed to be swept away by the intensity of her emotions, the purity of her affection. But the way Fontaine played it was just a bit creepy in its own way. Still, she did a good job playing the undisciplined, unrefined country girl. And when she left behind the unkempt hair and bare feet for the smart boarding school uniform, Fontaine did a very good job of acting more mature. She played the part as a little more sensible and a little less excitable. But I still didn’t really like Tessa. I guess it was just the way she was written.
And something else that bothered me. I kept hearing what I sometimes call the “please don’t hit me” voice that was appropriate for the Second Mrs. DeWinter in Rebecca, but just didn’t fit the character in the same way here. This one was a miss for me. And I think it may have been because Fontaine was miscast.