DVD/150: HOBSON'S CHOICE (David Lean, 1954)

Some films are never as you remember them...

I remembered HOBSON'S CHOICE, Harold Brighouse's 1916 play of a Manchester shoe-shop, as an extended Victoria Wood sketch, but it's so much more.

Lean directed 16 films over 42 years but only two comedies, BLITHE SPIRIT and HOBSON. Made in the first half of his career; there was no room for laughs in his later epics.

Henry Hobson runs his Salford shoe-shop mainly from the local pub drinking with friends, but it is actually managed by oldest daughter Maggie - unpaid of course.

Patronised as a 30 year-old spinster, Maggie has ambitions for a husband and her own business; both personified in Willie Mossop the shop's cobbler - what he lacks in education and gumption, is compensated by his wonderful creations.

Willie is swept along by Maggie's plans but how will Hobson react to losing Maggie and gaining a business rival?

Shelf or charity shop? A surprising 'shelf'.  David Lean directs with a wonderful eye for detail and a superb sense of place; you know exactly the world that Hobson, Maggie and Mossop exist in, aided immeasurably by Jack Hildyard's lustrous cinematography and Malcolm Arnold's rollicking score.  Charles Laughton is wonderful as Hobson, the would-be patriarch who is bested at every turn by Maggie. The camera loves him - and he loves it, but Lean keeps him reined it, letting him off the leash for his pixilated drunken scene, chasing the moon's reflections in rain puddles. Brenda de Banzie was a touch too old for Maggie but with her usual flinty directness is perfect for the 19th Century independant woman and the characterful cast includes Richard Wattis, John Laurie, and 22 year-old Prunella Scales as the youngest sister.  As always, I had issues with John Mills - his gormless Willie Mossop gets old very soon, but, after a wonderfully played solo scene where he procrastinates about going to bed on his wedding night, he is ok.

DVD/150: THE SOUND BARRIER (David Lean, 1952)

It shows how good a director David Lean was that a film that should make me run a mile - ex-WWII RAF pilots attempt to break the sound barrier - is, in fact, an involving drama.

It's popularity here and in America was reflected at award time: Terence Rattigan was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay and it righly won for Best Sound with it's excellent use of silence, echoes and the sudden whoosh of jets.  At the BAFTA Awards it won Best Film, Best British Film and Best British Actor for Ralph Richardson.

Richardson - I think playing a Yorkshire man but going a bit Gorbals at times - plays John Ridgefield, the owner of a jet building company who, while obsessively developing a jet to break the sound barrier, remains emotionally distant from his daughter and son.

Father and daughter are reconciled but at a high cost to them.

Shelf or charity shop? THE SOUND BARRIER is part of a David Lean box-set but I am happy to keep it for Sir Ralph's Ibsen-like Ridgefield and the performances of Nigel Patrick as his son-in-law pilot Tony, Joseph Tomelty as his over-worked jet designer and I even like Ann Todd who, although glacial as ever, finally proves effective as Ridgefield's daughter Susan.  A special mention too for Jack Hildyard's excellent cinematography; his striking visuals really lift the film out of the ordinary.