Lydia

Fleeing to New York after the outbreak of World War II, Julien Duvivier was invited by producer Alexander Korda to remake Christine, with Korda's wife Merle Oberon as Lydia, the doppelganger. In an almost entirely different story, the now old and celebrated philanthropist of handicapped children looks back on her youth as she meets her former suitors and must face the remorse for her own capriciousness. Shifting the emotional fulcrum to Lydia to befit the melodramas of the era, Duvivier manages to retain his visual tour de force and his signature bleakness beneath the fairytale surface of Hollywood sentimentality.

24/2 (Sat): Film talk with William Lau