Thank you for reading False Choices - every Friday I publish a post about now forgotten artifact of our culture, in case you’re looking for something new and different this coming weekend - enjoy and comment if you can, I love to hear from readers! Both films reviewed below are easy to find on Youtube.
There was a time when the British, following upon their longstanding culture of live drama, made great films. In the 20th Century the British were second only to Hollywood when it came to cinema. They brought their formidable history and dramatic talents to bear on the big screen with the stories of Kings and Queens and Archbishops of Canterbury, and the tales of Shakespeare which seemed ready made for the movie theatre.
There are hundreds of titles to seek and watch, especially if you’re not put off by black and white film. Famous movies like Pygmalion, adapted from the play of the same name by George Bernard Shaw; and relatively unknown movies like Hobson’s Choice, display the breath of British cinema in the mid 20th Century.
Pygmalion, many of us recognize the story as My Fair Lady when it became a Broadway musical and later Best Picture of 1964, stars Leslie Howard, an actor well known for his later role in Gone with the Wind, as the mad, conceited phonetician Henry Higgins. The producers made a clever move by introducing a new actress, Wendy Hiller, for the role of Eliza Doolittle, as a well known face may have made the transformation of the “guttersnipe” to a proper lady difficult for the audience to believe.
Pygmalion is not a musical however; it’s a comedy that starts with a clash of class. Henry Higgins and his friend Colonel Pickering are upper class men of means, while Eliza Doolittle is very poor flower girl, selling her less than lovely flowers on the street. The three of them run into each other outside a theatre in London and their meeting evolves to a challenge that Higgins can correct Eliza’s Cockney speech to make her sound London upper class. They also undertake the correction of the flower girl’s manners; it’s a top to bottom transformation.
Of course they fall in love during this time, and the clash of class becomes the more well understood and well known clash of the sexes. Who’s in charge? The teacher or the pupil? After the transformation is complete, the games begin. It’s a charming film, and well worth the time to watch.
Hobson’s Choice is another British comedy from midcentury, starring the venerable Charles Laughton - The Hunchback of Notre Dame - as Hobson. The title of the film is from an old English expression that describes a free choice of but one option: Take it or leave it. For Americans, a Hobson’s choice is like the Mafia explaining your choices as “do X or die,” though perhaps not as serious as that. Again, the British had a strong trave of theatre plays to draw from for their films. Hobson’s Choice was originally brought to stage in 1916.
Hobson owns a boot shop in London, but the shop and his life are run by his three daughters. He figures he’s got it all figured out; he’ll spend the better part of his time amusing his fellow drinkers at the pub, marry off the two younger daughters while the oldest one, Maggie, the best business person of the group, stays behind and continues minding the shop and making Hobson’s life an easy one. But two events turn the tables on old Hobson; a wealthy women proclaims the boots made by Willie, the boot maker in the basement, as the best in Lancashire; and Henry Hobson has a fall and a legal issue presented. From there, poor Henry confronts multiple Hobson’s Choices, each one more difficult than the last, as Maggie takes control of her own life and Hobson’s great plan for his future falls apart.
Like Pygmalion, Hobson’s Choice also presents a transformation, this time of a man, Willie, who starts in the basement, and has to learn to bear the confidence of a man who owns his own shop. The acting is very good, and the transformation comes off as believable. The film also makes a good case for the old adage that in marriage the women is the navigator, the man is the engine. I’m ok with that, though it’s not a well thought of concept these days.
The film opens with a number of shop owners all telling their wives, or daughters in the widow Hobson’s case, that they have an early business engagement. Of course they all make their way to the local pub to start the day getting a buzz on. British understated humor. There’s a lot of it if you’re in the mood. Really a fun film, not one you see very often anymore.
Thanks for the reviews. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen these movies and will look them up!