Carrie

(William Wyler, US 1952, 121 min., 35mm)

William Wyler. One of William Wyler’s most neglected films is a masterful adaptation of Theodore Dreiser’s fatalistic novel Sister Carrie. Jennifer Jones plays a poor girl from the slums of Chicago who is befriended by a kind, but married, restaurant manager Laurence Olivier. When the two become illicit lovers, they each undergo a reversal of fortunes: hers triumphant, his tragic. Wyler’s meticulous direction is matched by Olivier’s peerless portrayal, perhaps his finest on-screen performance.