Ultimately, I was left rather disappointed in "Jassy" after a promising start. I think this is not helped by the way that the title character is the last of all to appear (in somewhat unconvincing 'dirty' make-up). Up to this point the plot has been unequivocally centred around young Barney Hatton; the audience is now expected to do a U-turn and enlist its emotions on the part of someone completely different, as the plot sets off cross-country in pursuit of Jassy's odyssey instead. It is not until some considerable time and a good deal of social-climbing have passed that we see anything again of the complex web of characters who seemed so important at the start...
What I found disorienting was that the film seemed to keep switching allegiances in this manner throughout, which made it hard in the final analysis to become emotionally attached to any of the characters; by the end none of them seemed very likable, although I assume we were supposed to be on Jassy's side. The characters keep shifting -- good, bad, indifferent -- in what at first impressed me as a refusal to stereotype Nick Helmar, for example, as the villain of the piece, but ended up feeling like random inconsistencies bestowed for the sake of the plot.
The scenario didn't come across as particularly well-rooted in the social realities of the era (or even of the genre) either. With one hand it emphasises the sacred priority of 'debts of honour' incurred at the gaming-table; but then with the other it expects us to believe that a man detected cheating at cards would be considered hard-done-by when his host *merely* tossed a glass of wine in his face. Such a sin, on the contrary, attracted utter social condemnation -- small wonder that Chris Hatton (Dennis Price, perhaps the most watchable player in the film) takes his own life... but scarcely as a result of the insult!
Likewise, "Jassy" displays a good deal of wordless appreciation of the long hours and hard work expected of a 'tweeny', and the selfishness of the upper-class schoolgirls who expect her to sacrifice her brief nights to their escapades -- but then appears oblivious to the social cataclysm that threatens when Helmar's daughter attempts to pass off a serving-maid as a house guest and her father recognises the girl's name. Not only does Nick not turn a hair at discovering that his guest is the daughter of the rabble-rousing peasant leader who once berated him at the head of a mob on his own doorstep, but instead of throwing her out as a common impostor he actually apologises to her, which the script evidently considers the very least he could do. And apparently nobody in the village so much as blinks at seeing a raggedy ex-dairymaid elevated over them all as lady of the manor, without the slightest attempt to hide her origins.
(I was also very frustrated by an apparent plot hole, in that a never-consummated marriage would not have been legally binding on the husband -- a very foolish trick for Jassy to play!)
The love-affair with Barney, supposed to be the lynch-pin of the plot but rarely evident, failed to convince me. Dilys Helmar, introduced as a sympathetic character and ultimately used as an example of a mercenary bitch, had me completely confused, as did her father Nick, alternating between pettiness, random violence, and rare humanity.
In a better film these contradictions would be an indication of great skill, but here, alas, they come across as signs of arbitrary incompetence. If you really want a 'gorgeous English film from the 40s', try "The Wicked Lady", "Blanche Fury" (in many ways similar) or "Fanny by Gaslight" for authentic melodrama and Gainsborough swagger: by comparison I'm afraid "Jassy" is a bit of a mess.
What I found disorienting was that the film seemed to keep switching allegiances in this manner throughout, which made it hard in the final analysis to become emotionally attached to any of the characters; by the end none of them seemed very likable, although I assume we were supposed to be on Jassy's side. The characters keep shifting -- good, bad, indifferent -- in what at first impressed me as a refusal to stereotype Nick Helmar, for example, as the villain of the piece, but ended up feeling like random inconsistencies bestowed for the sake of the plot.
The scenario didn't come across as particularly well-rooted in the social realities of the era (or even of the genre) either. With one hand it emphasises the sacred priority of 'debts of honour' incurred at the gaming-table; but then with the other it expects us to believe that a man detected cheating at cards would be considered hard-done-by when his host *merely* tossed a glass of wine in his face. Such a sin, on the contrary, attracted utter social condemnation -- small wonder that Chris Hatton (Dennis Price, perhaps the most watchable player in the film) takes his own life... but scarcely as a result of the insult!
Likewise, "Jassy" displays a good deal of wordless appreciation of the long hours and hard work expected of a 'tweeny', and the selfishness of the upper-class schoolgirls who expect her to sacrifice her brief nights to their escapades -- but then appears oblivious to the social cataclysm that threatens when Helmar's daughter attempts to pass off a serving-maid as a house guest and her father recognises the girl's name. Not only does Nick not turn a hair at discovering that his guest is the daughter of the rabble-rousing peasant leader who once berated him at the head of a mob on his own doorstep, but instead of throwing her out as a common impostor he actually apologises to her, which the script evidently considers the very least he could do. And apparently nobody in the village so much as blinks at seeing a raggedy ex-dairymaid elevated over them all as lady of the manor, without the slightest attempt to hide her origins.
(I was also very frustrated by an apparent plot hole, in that a never-consummated marriage would not have been legally binding on the husband -- a very foolish trick for Jassy to play!)
The love-affair with Barney, supposed to be the lynch-pin of the plot but rarely evident, failed to convince me. Dilys Helmar, introduced as a sympathetic character and ultimately used as an example of a mercenary bitch, had me completely confused, as did her father Nick, alternating between pettiness, random violence, and rare humanity.
In a better film these contradictions would be an indication of great skill, but here, alas, they come across as signs of arbitrary incompetence. If you really want a 'gorgeous English film from the 40s', try "The Wicked Lady", "Blanche Fury" (in many ways similar) or "Fanny by Gaslight" for authentic melodrama and Gainsborough swagger: by comparison I'm afraid "Jassy" is a bit of a mess.
