Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)

This certainly could be incredibly faithful to the Cyrano story, but man is the majority of it boring. Cyrano, while obviously articulate and a capable wordsmith, is too conceited and hot-headed to be a hero worth rooting for. Through all the sword fighting, I was just hoping it would get to what I see as the whole point of the plot, the love story and mixing of identities. Jose Ferrar is adequate as Cyrano, doing a fairly good job portraying his heartbreak, but I couldn’t help thinking the whole production would have been smoother with thirty less minutes of runtime. Not helping its case any was another poor coloration version provided by Amazon.

Oscar Win: Best Actor in a Leading Role