The Lark (1957 TV Movie) User Reviews

A bit heavy-handed but still worth seeing.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 11 February 2014]

"The Lark" was a Broadway play that was brought to television as part of the Hallmark Hall of Fame productions. Unlike a lot of plays that are brought to TV or the screen, this one actually retains most of the same actors--such as Julie Harris and Boris Karloff.

The play is a dramatization of the trial of Joan of Arc as well as a few flashback scenes. Julie Harris plays Joan and she is quite earnest in the role--perhaps a bit too earnest at times. In fact, this is the problem with the production--the other that it comes off as a bit too heavy-handed at times--particularly at the end. Still, I enjoyed the play and like that it was done in more modern language than some of the films about the same people and incidents. Worth seeing but far from a must-see.

If you are interested in seeing it, it's available for free download from archive.org--a repository often linked to IMDb. Also, you will notice on this file that the original Hallmark ads are still there--and they seem amazingly lame as the unseen narrator reads the cards (again and again and again) with his rather boring delivery.

Generally Well Done

[fubared1 · 6/10 · 3 January 2013]

Well-acted by an usual cast including Eli Wallach, Jack Warden and Boris Karloff.

Actually Karloff comes off the best and well-deserved his Tony nomination for the Broadway production.

The others unfortunately don't come off as well, with Warden and Wallach unlikely choices for there roles. And the usually reliable Harris is way over the top and much too theatrical for a TV film, but one can chalk it up to unfamiliarity with the medium. Rathbone has a nice little part as the Inquisitor.

Generally it's well directed by the reliable Schaeffer.

When the church goes too far.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 16 June 2022]

Any opportunity to record for posterity the great performances of live theater is a necessity in keeping them available not only for entertainment purposes but for study and certainly so these not often revived plays can be seen for generations to come. Hallmark Hall of Fame took a recent version of a French play, translated to English and adapted by Lillian Hellman, quite different from the George Bernard Shaw play that has been frequently revived, while this one has not. Julie Harris had received great acclaim for her performance as Joan of Arc as did Boris Karloff, and they get to recreate their performances for television. It is a very dramatic and theatrical special event, perhaps way too big for the small screen, but that beats never having been filmed at all.

The television film is seen through the eyes of authority figures from the church, watching her from the time she was growing up until they became involved in her case. She believed that she was called by God to dress as a man to go into the battle to fight for France, and that results in her being accused of blaspheming, leading to her execution by burning. Karloff seems throughout the play to be anxious to save her, but the results of her trial have him saving her in a way that does not really save her. She would rather face the fire and see God sooner, rather than live the rest of her life in prison as a part of her atonement. The way Karloff announces her sentence changes him from a sympathetic character to someone misusing his power, and it's obvious that in the final scenes he will live to regret it.

The supporting cast is wonderful, with Jack Warden, Denholm Elliott, Eli Wallach and in a lengthy cameo, Basil Rathbone. Filmed on a TV sound stage, the production requires the viewer to utilize their imagination, with minimalized sets but realistic costumes representing the era in which she lived. Harris definitely is playing to a third balcony which isn't there, but that gives the viewer the idea of what they would have seen on the stage. I have seen two stage adaptations of Shaw's play, and this is quite a different interpretation of her life. I wouldn't have this done any other way than how it is here, but unlike other plays which were later re-done in color with the same cast, this is definitely a product of the time of early television, so it is a time capsule back to experimentation in that medium, and if not perfect, a necessity. The Hallmark Hall of Fame commercials for their product are tedious and easy to fast forward through, that is for viewers who don't want to sit through them and get an unintentional laugh.

Interesting Entry In Mid 50s Joan Cycle

[lchadbou-326-26592 · 26 August 2013]

There was a flurry of interest in Joan Of Arc in the mid 1950s. Anouilh's 1953 play Alouette is the source for this now timely record of the recently deceased Julie Harris' 1955 Broadway role. Also in 1953 Roberto Rossellini began a series of performances in Europe with his wife Ingrid Bergman of Arthur Honegger's 1933 oratorio on Joan which he later turned into a film with her, released in 1955. Finally, Otto Preminger presented a controversial movie of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan in the summer of 1957, starring an unknown, Jean Seberg. Of these the Seberg rendition is the weakest as she was a novice, Bergman and Rossellini's version offers the spirituality they brought out in each other, and beautiful music.(Bergman had played Joan previously in a 1948 Hollywood epic.) I'm not sure how much of The Lark is lost in the adaptation (credited to Lillian Hellman) of Anouilh's French, but the quality of the acting that was offered regularly to Hallmark Hall Of Fame viewers was high.Harris adds a degree of sweetness,innocence, and a certain tomboy quality to her interpretation.