WATERLOO BRIDGE. MGM, 1940. Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor, Lucile Watson, Virginia Field, Maria Ouspenskaya, C. Aubrey Smith. Director: Mervyn LeRoy.

   Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, Waterloo Bridge has elements that all combine to form an excellent movie: two exceptionally talented and strong leads, a hauntingly tragic romance, and Academy Award-nominated cinematography. There’s also a memorable, Academy Award-nominated score by Herbert Shothart, who won an Oscar for his score to The Wizard of Oz the previous year.

   Waterloo Bridge stars Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor as hopelessly doomed lovers, their romance both kindled, and interrupted, by the violence of the Great War. As the film’s narrative begins, a camera pans a London crowd. It’s early September 1939 and Britons are in the street listening to a newscast announcing that Great Britain is now at war with Germany.

   Soon, we see a grayed and somewhat tired looking Colonel Roy Cronin (Taylor) entering a car en route to London’s Waterloo Station. He asks the driver to go by way of Waterloo Bridge and to drop him off at the bridge. He’ll walk across, he says. Cronin exits the vehicle and stands on the bridge amidst the steel girders, his forlorn eyes looking out in the distance.

   We witness him removing a small, white figurine from his jacket pocket. As he remains lost in thought, we hear a voice. It is unmistakably that of actress Vivien Leigh. Through this scene we learn that his story will be told by way of Cronin’s mental flashback, a glimpse backward to an earlier time, a more innocent time. The image on the screen morphs back in time, but not in place.

   Cronin is now standing on Waterloo Bridge, but the steel girders are gone. And there’s an unruly combination of automobiles, horse-drawn carriages, bicyclists, and pedestrians. We’re now seeing a younger, more vibrant Cronin. It’s the Great War and London’s under German bombardment.

   The air raid causes a panic, especially among a group of ballerinas bustling their way across the bridge. Among them, a beautiful woman, Myra Lester (Leigh), who drops a white figurine – her good luck charm – in the street in front of Roy. The two meet for the first time and soon make their way to shelter in the Underground. Their physical proximity in the subterranean transportation network leads to emotional closeness. An unlikely whirlwind romance begins.

   But if war is anything, it is cruel. And the First World War will be mercilessly cruel to these two would-be spouses. Myra is a ballerina, working under the direction of the authoritarian Olga Kirowa (Maria Ouspenskaya) who forbids her to have contact with Roy. But no bitter old woman will let the vibrant Myra from seeing her love. Their love blossoms, and there is talk of marriage. But alas, it is not to be. For Roy, at the very last minute, is called to the front.

   Things get worse. Myra, along with her friend, is promptly dismissed from the ballet company and lives a meager existence, hoping to see Roy again one day. Things then become even worse. She reads in the paper that Roy died in the wartime. It is soul-crushing, causing her to spiral downward into a life of prostitution. Her entrée into the world’s oldest profession is, symbolically, on Waterloo Bridge.

   It is at Waterloo Station, however, that Myra’s tragic fate will be forever sealed. In one of the most vividly portrayed tragic scenes I’ve seen in a 1940s film, Myra makes her way through a crowd in Waterloo Station. Men are returning from the front and she is on the prowl for a client. She tries to look pretty. A smile is forced. She looks awkwardly confused, her face betraying a remarkable sadness. Then we see her eyes and a close up of Myra’s face.

   Her horror is unmistakable. Whom does she see? Roy, of course, a smiling, gallant Roy emerging returning from France. The man who she thought dead, the soldier’s whose non-death caused her to chose to sell her body as a wartime commodity. Roy pursues her and there’s talk of marriage once again. But this is a tragedy, after all. Unless you are a complete cynic, it’s difficult not to be moved by Myra’s fall from an almost marriage into the depth of psychological despair.

   Waterloo Bridge is also a metaphor for innocence lost on a much grander scale. The carnage of the Great War tore British society asunder, ushering in a wave of poetry and literature that reflected the tragic break from the Victorian Era. The peaceful pre-war world would never return. So it is with Roy Cronin, a man scarred by sadness, standing on Waterloo Bridge in 1940, remembering his lost Myra as the world plunges into another maelstrom.

   It’s a wonderfully sad film, with some great moments. Leigh, who apparently wanted real life husband Laurence Olivier to portray Roy Cronin, is simply magnificent. Taylor is very good here too, if a bit – how shall I put this – just too American to convincingly portray a British officer. But that doesn’t stop the on-screen chemistry between the world-weary Myra and the ebullient, if unconvincingly naïve, handsome Roy.

   All told, Waterloo Bridge is a very good film, although one must suspend disbelief to image these two characters falling in love so fast. But war has a strange way of doing things to people. The prostitution angle, which is exceedingly important to the plot, is more hinted at than anything else, probably due to the Production Code. We never even see Myra with a client. But we all know what path she chose for herself. And by the time the film is over, we know how the Great War ended for Myra and Roy. A well made tragedy that is worth seeing.