PETER IBBETSON (1935)
Article #1023 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-2-2004
Posting Date: 5-31-2004
Directed by Henry Hathaway
Featuring Gary Cooper, Ann Harding, John Halliday

Two childhood sweethearts are separated as youths, and then meet again many years later to discover they are still very much in love.

The fantastic aspect of this movie doesn’t manifest itself until the second half of the movie, and to tell you the events that lead up to it would be giving away huge chunks of the plot, so all I will say at this point is that the two main characters are able to share the same dreams by which they can be together through a forced separation. In short, this is romantic fantasy. It’s fairly good, with decent performances from all concerned, unexpected plot twists, and some interesting secondary characters. An earlier version of the Du Maurier story appeared in 1921, but I have been unable to find that one.