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On May 17, 1940, the film "Soul Break blue bridge" premiered in the United States, and in November of the same year, the film landed in China. At that time, the domestic cinema advertised the film in the newspaper, and put out such an advertising slogan: "Shan Menghai oath jade people are haggard, and the moon is missing flowers and flowers are hated all day long!" ”
Although "Soul Break Blue Bridge" is a black and white movie, it has left people with colorful and eternal memories. Some people say that it is a classic of love that is full of intestines, and it is one of the three poignant and immortal love films in the history of cinema.
The movie "Soul Break Blue Bridge" tells the story of during World War I, Army Captain Roy meets ballet dancer Mara during a rare vacation, and the two fall in love and become engaged to each other for life. However, due to the early arrival of the conscription order, Roy rushed to the battlefield before he could say goodbye to his lover, and there was no news from him. After that, Mara thought that her lover had died on the battlefield, and she was sad and fell into the dust. After the war, Mara and Roy met unexpectedly, she felt that she could not continue this relationship, and finally Mara was killed in a car accident on the Waterloo Bridge where the two first met, leaving a song "Friendship Lasts Forever" to accompany Roy for life.
After "Soul Break Blue Bridge" landed in China, it triggered a movie-watching frenzy. The "unprecedented tragedy" of this drama, which is "warm and tense" and "poetic", has earned enough tears from Chinese audiences. The theme music in the film based on the Scottish folk song "Friendship lasts for a long time" is also regarded as a classic song in China and has been passed down to this day.
What is the special charm of the Hollywood movie "Soul Breaking blue bridge", which can move and shock generations of Chinese audiences? What other untold stories are behind this movie? The story of "Broken Blue Bridge" takes place in Waterloo Bridge on the River Thames in London, England, which was built in 1817 as a 9-hole stone bridge, also known as London Bridge. When it was completed and opened to traffic, it coincided with the second anniversary of the British Duke of Wellington's victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, hence the name Waterloo. The male and female protagonists in the movie, Roy and Mara, from the romantic acquaintance on the Waterloo Bridge to the gray thoughts on the Waterloo Bridge, recite the poignant singing of the long time, and everything is closely connected with the Waterloo Bridge.
The movie "Blue Bridge" swept the world, and this Waterloo Bridge has become famous in the world since then, attracting tourists from all over the world to come and take photos. With the change of the times, the Waterloo Bridge in the movie "Soul Breaking Blue Bridge" has long become a modern bridge of reinforced concrete.
You see, today, this imposing five-hole arch bridge is like a necklace to the beautiful Colorado River. Hey, wait, Colorado River, that's in arizona in the west of the United States, isn't the Waterloo Bridge in the movie located in London, England? How did it end up in the United States?
The original English title of the movie "Soul Break Blue Bridge" was "Waterloo Bridge", which literally translates to "Waterloo Bridge". As I said, this bridge also has a name called "London Bridge", but why is it translated as "Blue Bridge" in China?
In the 1930s and 1940s, when Western films came to China, they would be given a translation name with oriental charm, and "Soul Breaking Blue Bridge" was a classic representative of it. It is said that the name was suggested by a lady, both aesthetically pleasing and catchy, and China's vast and profound culture immediately dressed a doll into a classical beauty that Chinese familiar and easy to identify. The film swept the country because of such a name, and the first recorded martyrdom story in Chinese history, "Tail Birth Holding Pillar", was related to the bridge.
Filmed in January 1940, The Blue Bridge is a romance film produced by MGM Pictures, directed by Melvin Leroy and starring Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor. At the beginning of the preparation, the script was prepared for the "Queen of Silent Films" Garbo, but Garbo is disheartened by the fiasco of "Two-Faced Woman". When the script was delivered to Vivien Leigh, she was not very interested, and even asked the director to lobby another famous actress in Hollywood, Joan Crawford, to play Marla.
At that time, Vivien Leigh's mind was all poured into another movie, the name of this movie was "Butterfly Dream". However, Selznick, the producer of "Butterfly Dream", thinks that Vivien Leigh is too beautiful to play the heroine. Why is "Butterfly Dream" so attractive to Vivien Leigh? The reason is actually very simple, the male protagonist of the movie "Butterfly Dream" is Vivien Leigh's boyfriend Oliver.
It seems that Vivien Leigh, who is in a period of hot love, chooses the film to a large extent to follow her lover, hoping to co-star in a classic movie with her lover. But in the end, the films starring Oliver, "Pride and Prejudice" and "Butterfly Dream", did not choose Vivien Leigh as the heroine, vivien Leigh had to play "Soul Break Blue Bridge", but what no one thought was that she inadvertently achieved "Soul Break Blue Bridge", "Soul Break Blue Bridge" also achieved Vivien Leigh.
Interestingly, when Vivien Leigh was filming "Soul Breaking Blue Bridge" in the studio, Oliver in the studio was filming "Pride and Prejudice". Throughout the filming process, Vivien Leigh has always wanted to reunite with Lawrence Oliver as soon as possible and participate in the upcoming tour of "Romeo and Juliet" in the United States.
Therefore, as soon as she has a vacancy, Vivien Leigh shuts herself in the lounge, seizes the time to study Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, practice her lines, and as soon as she walks out of the room, she can transform into the role of Mara in "Soul Break Blue Bridge". To this end, director Leroy also had to exclaim: Vivien Leigh is the most talented and hard-working actress I have ever seen! If she is not an actress, she should be a diplomat.
The heroine Mara in the original script is thinner, that is, a bitter and kind woman. Vivien Leigh, on the other hand, endowed Mara with a three-dimensional personality at multiple levels, adding fortitude, self-esteem and reason to Mara's image. She vividly performs the happiness of the characters in their first love, the sadness of breaking up, and the despair after losing their lover. Why can Vivien Leigh interpret the image of a tragic woman who died for love in the context of the war so well?
After the release of "Soul Breaking Blue Bridge" in the United States, due to Vivien Leigh's participation, it also received huge attention, but surprisingly, although the media gave a very high evaluation of Vivien Leigh's performance, believing that "Miss Vivien Leigh showed outstanding acting talent, following Hao Sijia, she has created a very outstanding image that is not inferior in terms of realism and charm", but the film's box office revenue is not optimistic. Why?
It turns out that the tragedy of "destroying the good things for people to see", although more contagious, is difficult to arouse a more passionate welcome in the hearts of American and European audiences in the midst of the Great Depression and the shadow of war. So why did this film cause a huge sensation after its release in China, showing the effect of flowering inside the wall and incense outside the wall?
In "Soul Break Blue Bridge", we can also find many other places that contain oriental culture. In China's ancient classic love stories, there are often some keywords: talent and beauty, love at first sight, private life, martyrdom, etc., and these words can correspond to the story of "Soul Breaking Blue Bridge". This may be the reason why the film can produce a sensational effect in the East!
Everyone who has seen "Soul Breaking Blue Bridge" will still remember the soundtrack of the film, and "Best Film Score" is one of the two Oscar nominations for this film. The melody of "Friendship Lasts a Long Time" that runs through the whole film creates a romantic and poignant atmosphere for the film.
It is said that Vivien Leigh, who did not want to star in this play at first, later said with deep feeling that her favorite is this movie, especially the interlude in the film, and she hopes to play this song at her funeral.
In the late 1960s, the film's male protagonist, Robert Taylor, was hospitalized due to illness, and in his final days, he often relived the films he starred in in his hospital bed. One day a friend came to visit, he was enjoying "Soul Break Blue Bridge", and the friend asked him, which one is his favorite of all his films? Taylor pointed to the screen, "That's it." ”
For more exciting content, lock in the Hubei Satellite TV "Big Reveal" movie classic "Soul Breaking Blue Bridge" broadcast at 6:30 on May 14.