About as far removed from his American playwright contemporary Tennessee Williams as you could get, yet there's a place in my heart for English dramatist Terence Rattigan and his perhaps subtler expositions of motive, need, weakness and ultimately dignity in the human condition.
Interestingly, this movie adaptation of his mid 50's play, slightly improbably makes prominent use of American actors, although fortuitously possibly, this helps to elevates its status to a wider and higher level and almost certainly helped it to get noticed by the Academy at the awards round.
Director Mann doesn't try too hard to "open out" the play for the cinema, realising its strength lies in depicting the enclosed stultifying world of the not-quite "Grand Hotel", it acting as a metaphor for the trapped existences of its various inhabitants. That said, none of the main characters hardly seem drawn from reality, but once you concede the writer's dramatic licence, you have to admire his skill in their interplay and the well-managed conclusion which works too as an indictment against narrow-minded intolerance as the fellow-guests at last react against flinty old Lady Matheson (Cathleen Nesbitt) and her petty-minded outrage at and desired expulsion of David Niven's disgraced "Major" character. Niven won the Oscar for his performance and you can see why, moving from blustery, caddish bonhomie (his "what what" refrain really gets on your nerves as he himself honestly admits) to his awkward embarrassed demeanour at the end. In support, I also enjoyed the playing of Wendy Hiller as the school-marmy hotelier, Deborah Kerr as Nesbitt's sexually repressed daughter and Gladys Cooper as her put-upon friend who like the daughter rises up but gently to overturn the Major's victimisation and rehabilitate him.
It doesn't all work, Lancaster and Hayworth's story seems to belong in a different play / film and the minor parts are too sketchily drawn (Rod Taylor and his randy girlfriend too obviously counterpointing the sexual gaucheness of Kerr's Sibyl) and a too obvious Margaret Rutherford type inserted no doubt to add some humour.
I'm pretty sure it would have made for a better night out at the theatre than the cinema, but I wouldn't deny the play's elevation to a wider audience and certainly didn't regret checking in on this occasion.
Interestingly, this movie adaptation of his mid 50's play, slightly improbably makes prominent use of American actors, although fortuitously possibly, this helps to elevates its status to a wider and higher level and almost certainly helped it to get noticed by the Academy at the awards round.
Director Mann doesn't try too hard to "open out" the play for the cinema, realising its strength lies in depicting the enclosed stultifying world of the not-quite "Grand Hotel", it acting as a metaphor for the trapped existences of its various inhabitants. That said, none of the main characters hardly seem drawn from reality, but once you concede the writer's dramatic licence, you have to admire his skill in their interplay and the well-managed conclusion which works too as an indictment against narrow-minded intolerance as the fellow-guests at last react against flinty old Lady Matheson (Cathleen Nesbitt) and her petty-minded outrage at and desired expulsion of David Niven's disgraced "Major" character. Niven won the Oscar for his performance and you can see why, moving from blustery, caddish bonhomie (his "what what" refrain really gets on your nerves as he himself honestly admits) to his awkward embarrassed demeanour at the end. In support, I also enjoyed the playing of Wendy Hiller as the school-marmy hotelier, Deborah Kerr as Nesbitt's sexually repressed daughter and Gladys Cooper as her put-upon friend who like the daughter rises up but gently to overturn the Major's victimisation and rehabilitate him.
It doesn't all work, Lancaster and Hayworth's story seems to belong in a different play / film and the minor parts are too sketchily drawn (Rod Taylor and his randy girlfriend too obviously counterpointing the sexual gaucheness of Kerr's Sibyl) and a too obvious Margaret Rutherford type inserted no doubt to add some humour.
I'm pretty sure it would have made for a better night out at the theatre than the cinema, but I wouldn't deny the play's elevation to a wider audience and certainly didn't regret checking in on this occasion.