The Fan

Another of the many examples of the adage "If you can't do it better, don't remake it." Oscar Wilde's famous play "Lady Windermere's Fan" had been brought to the silver screen by Ernst Lubitsch in 1925. Preminger's version, despite a strong cast, was bowdlerized by the scripters into a soapy mess. Preminger later confessed his mistake, stating that he hated the film during production, and that whatever he did to it was wrong. The story centers on the self-imposition of the notorious, aging, but still beautiful Carroll into the otherwise happy, patrician existence of youthful, wealthy nobleman Greene and his lovely but prudish and judgmental young wife, Crain. When ...