Beloved Infidel

Plot

Gregory Peck stars as the great American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald in this film based on a memoir by Sheilah Graham, who was Fitzgerald's paramour during his final days. Graham (played by Deborah Kerr) was a gossip columnist and aspiring novelist who met Fitzgerald during his latter days as a Hollywood screenwriter. Deep in debt thanks to his wife's stay in a mental hospital and his daughter's private school tuition, Fitzgerald took a job writing film scripts to pay the bills, as he attempted to complete another novel that would re-establish his position as one of the important American authors of his century. Graham became Fitzgerald's aid and inspiration as he tried to steer himself away from alcohol and focus on his work, but the author was no longer as strong or stable as he once was. While Graham and Fitzgerald were in love, they often fought, and their efforts came to naught when he died of heart failure before completing The Last Tycoon, with Graham at his side. Eddie Albert co-stars as Carter, a character based on Fitzgerald's close friend Robert Benchley. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Review

Beloved Infidel is soapy, less than satisfying, and probably quite skewed, at least in terms of the manner in which it presents the relationship between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sheilah Graham. The film's tale is a lopsided one in which Graham is presented as both the savior and the victim of Fitzgerald, and while there is certainly a basis in truth for this, it oversimplifies a relationship rather more complex than that. Given the film's casting, however, this may have actually worked a bit to its benefit, as Gregory Peck, as Fitzgerald, gives a performance that is so far off the mark as to be embarrassing. Peck was an extremely talented actor, but there is nothing in his persona that matches the qualities associated with Fitzgerald. As a result, Peck is totally at sea, unable to capture the pathos, demons, genius or inner life of the character, and is unfortunately incapable of pulling off either of the big drunk scenes the role requires. By contrast, Deborah Kerr is in peak form as Graham, imbuing the role with a warmth and a vulnerability that causes her to upstage Peck at practically every turn. Even when the script is at its most melodramatic, Kerr finds the emotional truth underlying the bathos; her work is rich and detailed -- and so strong that it emphasizes the imbalance between the characters that is inherent in the screenplay. Aside from Kerr, there's also some yummy Leon Shamroy photography and a very nice performance from an underutilized Eddie Albert. All this is not enough to make up for the film's flaws (including the idiotic title song), but it does make the film watchable. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi

Cast

• Gregory Peck - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Deborah Kerr - Sheilah Graham
• Eddie Albert - Carter
• Philip Ober - John Wheeler
• Herbert Rudley - Stan Harris

John Sutton - Lord Donegall; Karin [Katharine] Booth - Janet Pierce; Ken Scott - Robinson; Buck Class - Dion; Cindy Ames - Miss Bull; Cameron A. Grant - Johnson

Credit

Maurice Ransford - Art Director, Lyle Wheeler - Art Director, Bill Thomas - Costume Designer, Stanley Hough - First Assistant Director, Henry King - Director, William H. Reynolds - Editor, Franz Waxman - Composer (Music Score), Franz Waxman - Songwriter, Paul Francis Webster - Songwriter, Ben Nye, Sr. - Makeup, Leon Shamroy - Cinematographer, Jerry Wald - Producer, Eli Benneche - Set Designer, Walter Scott - Set Designer, Harry M. Leonard - Sound/Sound Designer, E. Clayton Ward - Sound/Sound Designer, Sy Bartlett - Screenwriter, Gerold Frank - Book Author, Sheilah Graham - Book Author

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