The Divine Lady (1928)

Corrine Griffith is the ambitious young Emma Hart, daughter of a cook, who has a bit of a reputation that doesn’t make her universally welcome. She does attract the attention of her employer, Charles Grenville (Ian Keith) but he soon tires of her and ships her off, under false presences, to live with his uncle Sir William Hamilton (H.B. Warner) who just happens to be the British Ambassador to the kingdom of Naples. Now this man is quite an aesthete, and when poor jilted Emma realises that her love has no intentions of joining her she accepts a proposal of marriage from her host. It’s a loveless arrangement, but she has wealth, privilege and the ear of the queen. That relationship becomes especially useful when she is introduced to the visiting Admiral Nelson (Victor Varconi) whom, after his victories for Great Britain, is an acclaimed seaman. He is also fighting an outbreak of scurvy amongst his ill-nourished men, and so Emma has to use her wiles to get the queen to agree to allows the ports of the Two Sicilies to help them out - despite strong objections from the bullying French. Of course, there now follows an affair that the two are entirely engrossed in, regardless of the fact that both are married and that British society is not prepared to countenance it. Viscount and Battle of the Nile or not! Largely shunned and now back home, the couple live peacefully and quietly in a rustic setting until it comes time for the admiral to take to the seas again against the fleet of Napoleon near Cape Trafalgar. The rest of that is history, and so is the denouement of this rather good looking but lacklustre historical biopic. I didn’t really notice any chemistry between Griffith and a Varconi whose glass eye might actually have been his most animated feature. It all looks suitably grand and some of the seafaring scenes deliver quite well - but it’s sometimes quite brutally edited, dimly lit and somehow it all just lacks either the pace to reflect her joie-de-vivre life in Naples or even, really, the burgeoning romance upon which it all rests. It is fine to watch, but sadly disappoints.