Broadway Marquee

Crowds gather under the Victoria Theater marquee in Times Square before heading in to watch Ingrid Bergman starring in “Joan of Arc” in November 1948. The Victoria, at Broadway and 46th, was originally the Gaiety Theatre with live performances featuring the likes of Helen Hayes, John Barrymore and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. It was renamed the Victoria and switched to movies in 1926.

Ingrid Bergman was one of the biggest stars in the land in the late 1940s. In 1945, a Times headline declared, “The Phenomenon Named Bergman: With three of her pictures on Broadway, the “off-beat” girl is Hollywood’s most desired woman.”

The actress was no stranger to playing Joan of Arc. She played the role on Broadway in “Joan of Lorraine,” a play within a play, from November 1946 to May 1947. In 1948, an adaptation of “Joan of Lorraine” was filmed in Technicolor as “Joan of Arc,” starring Bergman.

Times critic Bosley Crowther’s review of the movie said, “Out of the history and the legends of France’s great national saint and out of the brilliant stuff of pageants which the bold cinematist commands, Sierra Pictures has fashioned a stupendous film, “Joan of Arc,” which moved with the pomp of a procession onto the screen of the Victoria yesterday. Pictorially, it is one of the most magnificent films ever made, bespeaking the vast sum of money and the effort expended on it. Dramatically, it has moments of tremendous excitement and shock. And emotionally it has glimmers of the deep poignancy of the Maid.”