Editing Anthony Adverse (section)

==Reception==
=== Critical response ===
[[File:Olivia de Havilland 1936.jpg|thumb|Olivia de Havilland in ''Anthony Adverse'']]
In his 1936 review, ''[[The New York Times]]'' critic [[Frank Nugent|Frank S. Nugent]] panned "Warner's gargantuan film":{{blockquote|Speaking for ourselves, we found it a bulky, rambling and indecisive photoplay which has not merely taken liberties with the letter of the original but with its spirit...For all its sprawling length, [the novel] was cohesive and well rounded. Most of its picaresque quality has been lost in the screen version; its philosophy is vague, its characterization blurred and its story so loosely knit and episodic that its telling seems interminable. A few years back we devoted the better part of a British week-end to the reading of Mr. Allen's little pamphlet and we enjoyed it. Yesterday we spent only a fraction more than two hours watching its progress on the screen and we squirmed like a small boy in Sunday school.<ref>Nugent, Frank (1936). [https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9906EFDF1F3FEE3BBC4F51DFBE66838D629EDE "The Film Version of 'Anthony Adverse' Opens at the Strand – 'To Mary – With Love,' at the Paramount"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240204211328/https://www.nytimes.com/1936/08/27/archives/the-film-version-of-anthony-adverse-opens-at-the-strand-to-mary.html |date=February 4, 2024 }}, film review, ''The New York Times'', August 27, 1936; retrieved November 17, 2017.</ref>|author=|title=|source=}}

Writing for ''[[The Spectator]]'', [[Graham Greene]] expressed similar views, acerbically noting of the film that it "goes on too long, otherwise it might have been the funniest film since ''[[The Crusades (1935 film)|The Crusades]]''".<ref>{{cite journal |last= Greene|first= Graham|author-link= Graham Greene|date= September 25, 1936|title= The Song of Freedom/Anthony Adverse|journal= [[The Spectator]]}} (reprinted in: {{cite book |editor-last= Taylor|editor-first= John Russell |editor-link= John Russell Taylor|date= 1980|title= The Pleasure Dome|url=https://archive.org/details/pleasuredomegrah00gree|url-access= registration|pages= [https://archive.org/details/pleasuredomegrah00gree/page/103 103-104]|publisher= Oxford University Press |isbn=0192812866}})</ref> ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' described it as "a bit choppy" and "a bit long-winded" as well; but the popular trade magazine praised Fredric March's performance, adding that he was "an ace choice, playing the role to the hilt."<ref>"Kauf." (1936). [https://archive.org/stream/variety123-1936-09#page/n17/mode/2up "Anthony Adverse"], film review, ''Variety'', New York, N.Y., September 2, 1936, page 18. [[Internet Archive]], San Francisco, California; retrieved November 17, 2017.</ref> ''[[Film Daily]]'' wrote that ''Anthony Adverse'' "easily ranks among the leading pictures of the talking screen" and called the production's acting "flawless".<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/filmdailyvolume66970newy#page/78/mode/2up "'Anthony Adverse'"], "Reviews of the New Films", ''The Daily Film'', New York, N.Y., May 12, 1936, page 12. Internet Archive; retrieved November 17, 2017.</ref> "I don't think Mr. March has done any better piece of work than this", noted [[John Mosher (writer)|John Mosher]] in his positive review for ''[[The New Yorker]]''.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Mosher |first=John |author-link=John Mosher (writer) |date=August 29, 1936 |title=The Current Cinema |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |page=54 }}</ref>

The film was named one of the [[National Board of Review]]'s Top Ten pictures of the year and ranked eighth in the ''[[Film Daily]]'' annual critics' poll.<ref>[http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/title.jsp?stid=1857&category=overview ''Anthony Adverse'' at Turner Classic Movies]{{dead link|date=April 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> In a much later review, however, Reverend Austin Spencer also found the film adaptation—when compared to the novel—inadequate, especially in its portrayal of the personal challenges that confronted the story's [[protagonist]]:{{blockquote|In the book as written and published, Anthony Adverse's far-ranging life was clearly intended to be a spiritual journey at least as much as a physical one. Befitting with his name, he goes through great adversity to emerge a better man - renouncing material possessions in general and the owning of slaves in particular, and aspiring with increasing success to emulate the saintly, martyred Brother François. In the film, all this was chopped off and amputated by cutting off the book's plotline in the middle. The film's Anthony Adverse is in effect denied the spiritual redemption which his literary creator intended for him. Possibly this was simply due to the fact that a normal length film could not accommodate so many adventures and changes of fortune over three continents. But I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the film-makers considered 'too much Christianity' as endangering a film's box office success. Anyway, I strongly recommend to anyone seeing the film to also read the book and find for themselves what they missed.<ref>Rev. Austin James Spencer, "Christianity and Twentieth Century American Culture", p. 125, Spiritual Guidance Press, Kansas City, 1983</ref>}}

On [[Turner Classic Movies|TCM]], film critic [[Leonard Maltin]] gives the picture a positive review of 3.5/4 stars, praising the "Blockbuster filmization of Hervey Allen bestseller ... of young man gaining maturity through adventures in various parts of early 19th-century Europe, Cuba, and Africa" and the film's cinematography and "rousing musical score", both winners of Academy Awards.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Anthony Adverse (1936) – Overview – TCM.com|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/1857/anthony-adverse|access-date=July 24, 2020|website=Turner Classic Movies|language=en|archive-date=October 1, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201001035620/https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/1857/anthony-adverse|url-status=live}}</ref>

{{Rotten Tomatoes prose|score=18|count=11|average=4.3|consensus=|ref=yes |access-date=October 18, 2024}} It is the lowest-rated film to ever be nominated for [[Academy Award for Best Picture|Best Picture]] film on the website.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/lowest-rated-best-picture-nominees-of-all-time/|title=The 40 Lowest-Rated Best Picture Nominees of all time|access-date=2023-08-09|language=en-US|archive-date=July 5, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230705030538/https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/lowest-rated-best-picture-nominees-of-all-time/|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Box office===
The film was Warner Bros.' most popular release of 1936. It was also the studio's most expensive production that year, with an overall budget of $1,192,000. That hefty expense, however, proved to be a wise investment, for ''Anthony Adverse'' generated $1,558,000 in profits at the box office for Warner Bros., earning the studio $1,783,000 domestically and $967,000 in foreign markets.<ref name="warners"/>