Film Review
Whilst it may not enjoy the universal acclaim of David Lean's better known films,
this adaptation of Harold Brighouse's
popular stage play is one of the director's most enjoyable works, a
scintillating mix of morality play, melodrama and farce. Thanks
to Lean's slick and assured direction and some memorable performances,
the film was the rightful winner of the British Film Academy Award for
the Best British Film in 1954. The lavishly detailed sets -
particularly the exteriors - give a real sense of time and place,
namely a crowded working class town in the North of England in the late
19th century.
The great character actor Charles Laughton brings bucket-loads of
pathos and hilarity to his comic tour de force performance as the
laughably hypocritical Hobson, although Brenda De Banzie comes close to
stealing the show as the wonderfully controlling Maggie. As the
likeable downtrodden Willie Mossop John Mills is engaging and funny,
reminding us of his famous part in
The
History of Mr. Polly (1949). During the making of
this film, Laughton had a bad working relationship with both De Banzie
and Mills - he resented being out-staged by the former and had wanted
the part of Mossop to go to Robert Donat. Hobson's youngest
daughter is played by Prunella Scales very early in her career, years
before she became universally known as the long suffering wife of John
Cleese in the BBC TV series
Fawlty
Towers.
© James Travers 2008
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Next David Lean film:
Summertime (1955)
Film Synopsis
In the 1880s, Henry Horatio Hobson manages both his Salford boot shop
and his three daughters with an iron hand. One day, he declares
it is high time he found husbands for his two younger daughters, Alice
and Vicky. He has given up hope of marrying off his eldest
daughter, the domineering Maggie - and, in any event, she is far too
valuable to him in his shop. Unfortunately, Maggie has other
ideas. She tells the world she intends to marry Willie Mossop,
Hobson's illiterate boot maker. The timid Mossop is as surprised
as Hobson, but against Maggie's onslaught he is helpless.
Allowing Maggie to take charge of his life, Mossop opens a boot shop
and sets about ruining Hobson's business...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.