SEPARATE TABLES

Rita Hayworth and Burt Lancaster

SEPARATE TABLES (1958). Director: Delbert Mann.

"I have no curiosity about the working classes." -- Mrs. Railton-Bell.

"Being alone in a crowd -- it's so painful ... frightening." -- Ann Shankland.

At the seaside Beauregard Hotel in Bournemouth, England -- where several people are permanent residents -- certain little dramas are unfolding. The highly snobbish Mrs. Railton-Bell (Gladys Cooper) has discovered the inappropriate behavior of Major Angus Pollock (David Niven), who has bored everyone with fictional stories of his allegedly heroic wartime exploits. Mrs. R-B gathers the other residents to vote on whether or not to insist that the man be thrown out of the hotel. Mrs. R-B's neurotically shy daughter, Sibyl (Deborah Kerr), who is exceptionally fond of the major, undergoes an emotional crisis when she learns of his illicit activities. Meanwhile, the proprietress, Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller), who has become the lover of American resident John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster), discovers that his ex-wife, Ann (Rita Hayworth) is still in love with him and has taken a room in the hotel.   

David Niven and Deborah Kerr

Separate Tables was originally two plays by Terence Rattigan, sharing several supporting characters, that took place in the same location and were presented together on one evening in the theater, Although Rattigan was importuned to change this before the play debuted, the Major was originally a closeted homosexual and not a pervert who bothered women in a movie theater. (Although the movie is quite sympathetic to the major, it's a question how this would play in these post- MeToo days.) 

Separate tables indeed

The two plays have been intelligently put together and opened up (but not too much) and the film never appears stage bound or too talky, undoubtedly because Rattigan's dialogue is often excellent and perceptive. David Niven won a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal and Deborah Kerr, who is outstanding, should have won but was only nominated. (Niven is quite good but a cut below Kerr. Hiller won Best Supporting Actress but was surprised by this, as she isn't onscreen very long and complained that her best scenes were cut.) Playing a comparatively superficial if vulnerable character, Rita Hayworth is effective as Ann, as is Burt Lancaster, although he really can't compare to some of these venerable British actors. Gladys Cooper and Cathleen Nesbitt as her friend are exemplary, as are Hiller, Felix Aylmer as Mr. Fowler, and Mary Hallatt as the brisk and self-sufficient Miss Meacham. Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton have the thankless roles of a young couple temporarily staying in the hotel, their lines undoubtedly cut back to make room for the emoting of Hayworth and Lancaster.  Delbert Mann also directed the beautiful Middle of the Night and many others. 

Verdict: Superior British drama with some excellent performances. ***1/4. 

PYGMALION

Leslie |Howard as Henry Higgins

PYGMALION (aka Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion/1938). Directors: Anthony Asquith; Leslie Howard.

Phoneticist Henry Higgins (Leslie Howard of The Animal Kingdom) encounters a shabby flower girl named Eliza Doolittle (Wendy Hiller of Making Love), and this leads into the latter asking the former for speech lessons so she can get a job in a shop instead of selling flowers in the gutter. Higgins has his work cut out for him, but with the help of Colonel Pickering (Scott Sunderland) and housekeeper Mrs. Pearce (Jean Cadell), he is able to work wonders and introduce Eliza to his mother (Marie Lohr). Eliza not only turns into a lady but excites the fancy of young Freedy Eynsford Hill (David Tree). But Eliza can't help but wonder: what is to become of me?

Wendy Hiller as Eliza Doolittle

Some liberties were taken with George Bernard Shaw's play, but the notion that the two lead characters were turned into a more romantic couple is not borne out by the movie. Arguably, Alan Jay Lerner based his libretto for My Fair Lady more on this movie than on Shaw's play. In any case, while you definitely miss those great songs as you begin to watch Pygmalion, after awhile you forget about that and just get pulled along by a great story and dialogue, and two very wonderful performances, along with a host of well-done supporting performances -- a particular mention must go to Esme Percy, who is excellent as Count Aristid Karpathy, a former pupil of Higgins' who is determined to find out exactly who this Miss Doolittle is. Wilfrid Lawson is also fine as Eliza's father, Alfred, although he is nowhere near as lovable as Stanley Holloway in the musical version.

Esme Percy and Leslie Howard

Some may never see anyone else as Higgins except the marvelous Rex Harrison, but Howard is also great, as well as younger and better-looking. Hiller, who was introduced in this film, is certainly not as attractive as Audrey Hepburn, but she gives a sterling performance (one might argue that Hepburn is a bit more moving in the role, however). Eliza is admirably proud and feisty and her attempts to improve both herself and her lot in life are certainly to be respected. The movie was photographed by Harry Stradling, and Arthur Honegger provided some musical cues. Despite the fact that My Fair Lady may have eclipsed this, it is still definitely worth a look. Anthony Asquith also directed such masterpieces as The Browning Version and The Winslow Boy.

Verdict: Amusing and engaging comedy with fine performances. ***. 

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974). Director: Sidney Lumet.

Famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney of Tom Jones) takes over the investigation after a man using an assumed name is murdered, and there turns out to be a whole train load of suspects. In her novel, Agatha Christie's starting off point was the murder of the Lindbergh baby, and the victim was involved in the kidnapping of the child, herein named Daisy Armstrong. In both book and movie Poirot perhaps doesn't exhibit quite as much incredulity as he might have when he learns at least two people on the train just happen to have had ties to the victim (as well as others whose deaths were a direct result of little Daisy's murder). And then things get even stranger, but there's a method to Christie's madness ... This was the first of the big-budget, all-star adaptations of the works of Christie, and it's entertaining if unspectacular. Oscar winner for Best Actor, Finney is nothing like Poirot, but if this is a "stunt" performance, I must say it's an excellent one, although he isn't as good as David Suchet, who later made the role his own. Wendy Hiller gives a positively weird, and one assumes, intentionally comic performance as the aged Princess Dragomiroff. Ingrid Bergman is fine but her very small role hardly deserved the supporting Oscar she received. Similarly, Sir John Gielgud is wonderful, but he's on-screen for only a few minutes; he won a BAFTA award. (Surely Oscars should be reserved for actors who are very much outside their comfort zone, which Finney definitely was). In a terrible performance, Anthony Perkins literally twitches all over the place as the secretary to the dead man; Sean Connery has one strong scene explaining himself to Poirot; Rachel Roberts scores as the princess' maid; Richard Widmark is fine as the victim; Vanessa Redgrave [Camelot] is perfect and lovely as Connery's paramour; and Martin Balsam is a delight as a representative of the train line and a personal friend of Poirot's. Richard Rodney Bennett provided the pastiche Porter score, which lacks the suspense this type of picture requires. Many of the cast members, especially Lauren Bacall as the loud American lady, seem self-conscious.

In addition to the 2017 remake, there have been other adaptations of the famous story. Alfred Molina played Poirot in a 2001 television version. David Suchet again essayed Poirot in a 2010 TV movie  which added a prologue, with an adulteress being stoned to death, that was not in the novel, and an epilogue wherein Poirot expresses moral outrage over the murder on the train which he does not express in the book; later he softens his attitude due to the murder of that woman at the opening. Suchet is especially excellent in this and it's amusing to see Hugh Bonneville of Downton Abbey playing a mere valet. Finally, a Japanese mini-series based on the novel appeared in 2015.

Verdict: Take this train ride or not -- it's up to you. **1/2.

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MAKING LOVE

Harry Hamlin and Michael Ontkean

MAKING LOVE (1982). Director: Arthur Hiller.

A successful oncologist, Zach (Micheal Ontkean) seems to be happily married to his wife and best friend, Claire (Kate Jackson) -- they both love Gilbert and Sullivan, and poet Rupert Brooke --  but all of his life he's been fighting his attraction to men. He is less interested in having a very active sex life as he is in having a romantic, lifetime relationship with another man, and falls (rather quickly) for a foot-loose writer named Bart (Harry Hamlin of Clash of the Titans), who is much more comfortable with his sexuality. As Zach's marriage to Claire approaches its end, will Bart turn out to be the man that Zach's been hoping to find? Making Love, released by Twentieth Century-Fox, was the first major Hollywood film on homosexuality, and was heavily promoted as well. [That Certain Summer tackled the subject on television ten years earlier.] Although it could be argued that they give telefilm-type performances, the three leads are all good, and the film is interesting, with a moving conclusion. The casting of Kate Jackson as the very likable Claire was a smart move. Hamlin at times tries too hard to play it "gay" but Ontkean is fine, although the important sequences when he finally comes out to Claire are a bit awkward in both scripting and performance. Whatever its flaws, Making Love is to be commended for being one of the first films in which gay characters were neither maniacs nor corpses. Wendy Hiller [The Cat and the Canary] plays Winnie, an elderly friend of Zach and Claire's. A particularly charming scene has Zach and Claire entering a singing contest and being really bad just to spare a friendly young lady who was booed from getting the booby prize. Lovely score by Leonard Rosenman.

Verdict: Intelligent if imperfect gay love story -- of sorts. ***.

VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED

VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED (1976). Director: Stuart Rosenberg.

In 1939 Nazi Germany allowed about one thousand Jews to depart the country on a ship bound for Cuba, the SS St. Louis. This alleged "humanitarian" gesture was strictly a propaganda act, a smokescreen, as one character puts it, as it was never intended for the passengers to disembark in Cuba or anywhere else. Turned away by several nations, including, shamefully, the U.S., some of the passengers wold prefer death or mutiny to returning to Hamburg and certain execution in concentration camps. You would imagine that a movie on this subject would be very powerful -- and you can't help but be moved by the passengers' plight and the horrendous persecution and emotional devastation they were undergoing -- but Voyage of the Damned, unfortunately, plays like a lesser Movie of the Week with an almost-all-star, international, Movie of the Week-type cast [with some exceptions], "acting" up a storm at times but nonetheless seeming once-removed throughout it all -- in other words, the acting and direction are fairly perfunctory. Sequences that should have had great impact are pretty much frittered away by Rosenberg, and the movie is about 45 minutes too long, slack and lacking in needed tension. I mean, when you consider the situation these people were in! Some of the lesser known actors, such as Victor Spinetti as Dr. Strauss, who works in Cuba and desperately wants to get his small children off the ship, are more effective than the bigger names, although James Mason and Nehemiah Persoff are solid as usual. Sadly, Voyage of the Damned is blah when it should have been a masterpiece.The very large cast includes everyone from Lee Grant, Faye Dunaway and Ben Gazzara to Max von Sydow [as the captain], Wendy Hiller, Malcolm McDowell and even Orson Welles. Although they all have their moments, these could not be considered one of the better performances of any of them.

Verdict: Watch Judgment at Nuremberg instead. **1/2.

THE CAT AND THE CANARY

THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1978). Written and directed by Radley Metzger. Director's Cut. 

This is a disappointing color remake of the old scary silent movies of the same name. In 1934 at Briarcliffe Manor, the heirs are gathered together to find out which of them will get all of the late Cyrus West's money -- from Cyrus West (Wilfrid Hyde White) himself speaking on a film he made before his death. [An interesting aspect of this sequence is that the housekeeper is not only serving dinner to the heirs as they look at West's will-movie, but is also seen serving West in the movie-within-a movie, passing behind the screen in real time and showing up on the screen a second later. The only problem is that the actress doesn't look any younger, even though the will-film was made years before]. An added complication arrives in the form of a doctor (Edward Fox) who tells them all that a madman who thinks of himself as a cat and likes to tear at flesh has escaped from his asylum and they are all in danger. The main problem with this movie, which has an interesting cast, is that it has absolutely no atmosphere and is greatly over-lit. Talky and slow, it gets better in the second half when the Cat makes his appearance, and there's a good, suspenseful climax, but it may be too little too late. Wendy Hiller comes off best as West's lawyer, although Fox, Honor Blackman, Daniel Massey and Peter McEnery are also swell. Michael Callan and Carol Lynley are the nominal hero and heroine. and Beatrix Lehmann is the aged housekeeper. Olivia Hussey of Romeo and Juliet appears as another one of the heirs. Metzger was better known for his erotic features, and was the editor for The Flesh Eaters, which was way more entertaining than this borderline campy movie which never realizes its full potential. 

Verdict: At least the hidden passageways are interesting. **.

A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (1966) Director: Fred Zinnemann.

King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw) wants the Pope to allow him to divorce wife Catharine so that he can marry Anne Boleyn (Vanessa Redgrave). If you disagree with the King you're considered a traitor, but one man -- the Chancellor, Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield) -- thinks that the Pope's, God's law, overrules the King's, and refuses to take an oath of loyalty on the matter. This study of a man of principle, who adheres to private conscience over public duty, is absorbing, well-acted, literately scripted (by Richard Bolt from his play), and expertly photographed by Ted Moore, with a nice musical background by Georges Delerue. Orson Welles offers one of the best performances as Cardinal Wolsey, but Leo McKern as Cromwell, Shaw as King Henry, Nigel Davenport as Norfolk, and John Hurt as Richard Rich are all quite excellent as well. Vanessa Redgrave's brother, Corin Redgrave, also makes an impression as More's son-in-law William Roper, as does Susannah York as his daughter. Wendy Hiller seems to play her role as More's wife, Lady Alice, in only one note throughout, and Scofield, although he won the Best Actor Oscar, is overly cool and theatrical, as if he had toned down his stage performance a bit too much. At times he seems perfunctory instead of impassioned, busy speaking lines instead of feeling the emotions. And the question remains: was More a principled man of courage or a self-destructive religious fool (or fanatic) who cared more for the Church than for his wife and family? The film also won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Costumes, and Best Screenplay.

Verdict: Even if you grow impatient with the the central character, the film is well-made and compelling.***.